-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
This is an especially good time to act. After years of decline, Illinois is getting a boost as the national economy improves and a friendly administration showers federal money on the state. The latest credit rating upgrade shows Illinois can do better than it has. It can do right by its retirees and taxpayers if it takes advantage of this temporary upswing to attempt some commonsense reforms and set the table for a brighter future.
The amount will go in three buckets: the $700 million cost of construction, which officially kicked off Monday and is expected to take four years; $90 million for preparing artifacts, exhibits and the center’s opening; and $40 million in the first year of operating costs, according to an annual report and tax return for 2020 released this week.
The traditional workweek that drew 600,000 employees to Chicago’s commercial office buildings Monday through Friday before the pandemic will be replaced by a “three-and-two hybrid” with two days of remote work, a top mayoral aide predicted Wednesday.
Michael Fassnacht, newly-appointed CEO of the public-private job growth agency known as World Business Chicago, said the stay-at-home shutdown that forced employees to work from home — if they could — has created an appetite for remote work that will survive COVID-19 and all its variants.
Among major cities, Tacoma, Washington imposes the highest combined state and local sales tax rate, at 10.30 percent. Five other cities—Fremont, Los Angeles, and Oakland, California; Chicago, Illinois; and Seattle, Washington—are tied for the second highest rate of 10.25 percent. Birmingham, Alabama, at 10 percent, rounds out the list of major cities with a combined rate of 10 percent or higher.
Activists and local progressive officials in cities like Chicago don’t want the money used to pay down debt.
As property taxes soar, the percentage going to pensions increases even faster.
The influential Chicago lawyer’s involvement in the Andrew Cuomo sexual harassment scandal is raising thorny questions about the line between those who have access to power and those who hold power to account.
Much attention is paid, justifiably, to state lawmakers’ failure to give public employee pension plans the amount of money actuaries say is necessary to cover future obligations to retirees. The state’s latest annual pension reportblames another rise in unfunded liabilities on “actuarially insufficient employer contributions, changes in actuarial assumptions and demographics and other miscellaneous actuarial factors, along with lower-than-assumed investment returns.”
“We are beginning without a comprehensive reopening agreement. This is a real problem. So far the city has not been willing to agree to metrics, which would close schools and keep us safe if this surge continues,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey said at a morning rally outside Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen as school clerks returned to buildings citywide Wednesday.
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“They’re trying to cut social distancing in half. They’re trying to cut a number of other provisions, which we had in place last spring. And they’re not willing to make those commitments, and we’re not willing to
Construction of the Obama Center began this week in Jackson Park. At first, it was believed the presidential center would cost $700 million to build, of which $500 million was for “hard costs.”
Now, the Obama Foundation believes it will cost $830 million.
There are plenty of Black residents that still believe that they’re going to be getting direct cash payments, because that’s how the reparations program was framed when it was first introduced in 2019,” said Sebastian Nalls, a Black Evanston resident and one of the founders of Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations
Full report linked here.
When the calendar turns on a new year, the average Chicago household will have paid about $170 more for heat and cooking fuel than last year. The projected $1,350 price tag comes to over $112 a month on average, easily topping the $90-plus averages Chicagoans have been paying the past few years.
About 45.9% of those polled disapprove of the job Lightfoot is doing as mayor, 42.5% approve of her performance and another 10.8% are unsure or have no opinion. Also under water with Chicago residents, but by a much wider margin, is Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Just 34.7% of Chicagoans polled approve of the job the county’s top prosecutor is doing overall, 47.7% disapprove and 15.9% are unsure or have no opinion.
“Most notable among the catalogue of resentments is that the least resentful citizens of Illinois are those living in the relatively affluent Chicago suburbs.”
The local tax burden continues to shift from residential to commercial properties. Commercial landlords countywide this year collectively owe more than $7 billion, or 6.2 percent more than they were on the hook for last year, according to an analysis of 2020 tax year bills by Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ office. Homeowners, meanwhile, will be billed $8.9 billion, or 1.3 percent more than last year.
The foundation estimated as of June, the total costs will be $700 million, of which $500 million is slated for what the foundation calls “hard” construction costs.
From 2010 to 2020 three states, Illinois, West Virginia, and Mississippi lost more people than they gained. Illinois and West Virginia each lost a congressional seat, and Illinois lost $6 billion in 2019 due to population losses alone, an analysis of Internal Revenue Service data by the nonprofit Wirepoints website found.
A compliance audit, linked here, lists multiple failures.
A republication of our Wirepoints column.
And District 202 Superintendent Eric Witherspoon said that the concept of black lives mattering is “embedded in the mission and the goals of Evanston Township High School. We believe it, we live it, we embrace it.”
It’s long past time that the obvious questions be put to Governor JB Pritzker and other public officials who claim to be so dedicated to fighting COVID: Why aren’t you demanding that the border be enforced? Are infected immigrants being sent to Illinois? How many of Illinois’ COVID infections have been in illegal immigrants. Do you even know? Do you care?
Republicans said the money was handed out with few specifics, little public scrutiny and no real opportunity for the minority party to advocate for the needs of their constituents.
The expenditures include $250,000 for Black Lives Matter of Lake County, $500,000 for Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change, and $4 million each for three commissions representing Asian, Latino and African American families. There also are millions of dollars to supplement and expand immigration integrations services.
A deeper dive reveals labor force participation of Black non-Hispanic and Hispanic women without a college degree has fallen drastically. Unfortunately, bad policy could be exacerbating the problem. Illinois’ big priority is to spend $11.6 billion, more than 27 percent of the state’s budget, on public employee pensions. The result is heavy investment in past labor, with little available to invest in the future.
A block that had once been home to more than 100 people was down to six who lived amid the ruins of another era. There were gaping holes in roofs and crumbling foundations. Some houses were so bad that even the squatters had quit on them, and now only raccoons and rodents sought them out for shelter.
And then, for reasons that no one in Peoria could fathom, people from all over America began snapping them up. By early summer, seven houses on this block of West Lincoln Avenue had sold to buyers from Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Island,
The number of homes in the Chicago metro area grew by 3.9% between 2010 and 2020, census data made public Thursday shows. That was a slower growth rate than the nation overall, where the number of homes grew by 6.7%.
Rather than fight over political power, Stacy Davis Gates, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union said Black and Latino aldermen should create a coalition and recognize that engaging in a power struggle only serves the interests of the white majority.
“Don’t be sad for Lightfoot. She has been quite cruel, to her city, to her demoralized police force and their families, and just about everyone else who dares question her reign. But then, baseball can be cruel, too. The baseball gods are often cruel, as every fan knows.”
Pritzker: “This is yet another way Illinois is making powerful strides in transforming the culture of our schools.”
For those interested in really digging into the debate on the science of whether masks are effective, two pieces are probably the best start.
The lawsuit by the Illinois Rental Property Owners Association, or IRPOA, follows others filed by landlord groups against the federal government since Aug. 3, when the CDC said the freeze, which expired on July 31, would continue through Oct. 3.
A bill to facilitate consolidation of school administration was left to die in the Illinois House. It Why? Because teachers unions said no, that’s why.
Firms chosen to be in the pool must provide upfront and then annually update information on the number of Chicago-based employees; minority, women and disabled veteran ownership; and diversity of staff who cover the city account.
Crain’s/Harris Poll: 77 percent of execs surveyed believe that vaccination should be required for workers returning to a physical office. Just 41 percent of large companies expect to operate their offices at 50 percent of capacity within a month or are already doing so, with an additional 22 percent shooting for bringing 100 percent of workers back within three months. Still, 29 percent won’t bring their full staff back onsite for at least a year, if at all. The share of business leaders who expect to maintain their pre-pandemic workspace when COVID finally passes continues to drop, moving from 32
Rarely is there a matter on which data and expert opinion are so consistent – over time, across the world and regardless of political opinion: Two committed parents are the key to ending both intergenerational poverty and the consequences thereof, particularly crime.
“Cherry-picking statistics to minimize PR damage doesn’t help. It only creates the impression that the people at the very top of our public hierarchy don’t really understand the problem and that, ultimately, no one is capable of fixing it.”
Since 2018, the CBS 2 Investigators have chronicled Chicago’s unfair and potentially unlawful water billing practices. “Getting Hosed” started with one couple billed $58,000 for water they didn’t use. Every bill we’ve examined thereafter has been drastically inflated and the City department whose taxpayer-funded responsibility it is to provide safe, affordable drinking water has utterly failed consumers and undermined our investigative efforts at every turn.
The Final 5 Campaign is an organization dedicated to closing down the remaining five youth prisons in Illinois. One of them, the Illinois Youth Center in St. Charles, Illinois is the main priority for the organization. This particular facility is 127 years old.
If Illinois were to follow policy actions taken by other states, it would increase the number of over-the-counter medications and unlock other vital services such as testing for common infections like the flu. By updating state policies, countless lives can be saved and we can save millions on healthcare expenditure.
When Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently announced that state employees who work in congregate facilities would have to be vaccinated by October 4, the largest state employee union, AFSCME, released a statement chiding the governor. “We strongly oppose any effort to define them as part of the problem,” the powerful union claimed on behalf of those workers.
The spike in illegal border crossings from Mexico has reached truly extraordinary proportions, likely to make 2021 the worst year ever with 1.8 million illegal crossings projected at the current pace.
The chairman of the Regional Transportation Authority says suburban moderates and business leaders want him to run against Gov. J.B. Pritzker—and he hasn’t said no.
“But we have our own, milder, version of “re-education” camps that indoctrinate, all for a supposed good, evolved cause. We call our re-education camps public schools.
Here is one example, from Evanston, right outside of Chicago, of what first and second graders are now “taught” in school.”
Illinois’ flawed pension funding system weighs heavily on the ratings of some struggling local government ratings and legislative action to date has made little headway in solving the quagmire, S&P Global Ratings warns.
State legislative action consolidating suburban and downstate public safety funds and moving Chicago to an actuarial-based contribution help but they fall short of alleviating the pressures bearing down on municipalities to achieve better-funded ratios.
The Obama Center, if built, will stand as a fittingly hideous monument to the hubris of the out-of-touch, self-absorbed Obama crowd and to the misuse of government power, subsidized by Illinois and federal taxpayers, disfiguring one of the finest urban parks on the planet. Same for for his obscene party.
Pritzker could have used the independence that comes with bankrolling his own campaign to govern as a pro-business, centrist Democrat looking to spur economic growth so that his state could meet its liabilities and retain its tax base. Instead, he has continued down the path of high taxes and union control that will send even more citizens packing for other states. California and New York have more space for bad governance because they can afford to live off the capital of Silicon Valley and Wall Street; with no comparably powerful economic engine, Illinois is already in dire straits. In Pritzker,
“…another chance every day the sun comes up.”
Chicago government school teacher Ray Salazar: “So much of teenagers’ lack of success in stories about the pandemic and education that I’ve read remains grounded in whiteness..for white journalists and advocates who’ve lived life focused on the white supremacy characteristic of perfectionism, every failure means catastrophe.
Our Wirepoints article republished.
The Illinois Department of Public health took no time at all deciding last week to say it “fully aligns” with new masking guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control, including universal masking in schools, regardless of vaccination status. If you think that means the “science” behind the changes must be settled or clear, you haven’t been paying attention. Contradictions, confusion and unanswered questions from national health experts and media followed the CDC announcement, none of which is apparently of concern to IDPH.
The Syndicate was brutal, but it wasn’t random and ubiquitous like violence in the 21st century.
“As with the fraud involving fake claims, the administration of Gov. J.B. Pritzker is providing few details on the scope of the problem, as Pritzker gears up for a reelection battle with Republicans looking to question his record.”
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot took time out last weekend for the perfect place to cool off from the city heat: officiating at the wedding of Chris Kennedy, grandson of the late, great Robert F. Kennedy, and his bride, Erin Daigle, at the legendary Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
Comment: Ricky Hendon does music, too. Check this out.
Some are reverting to safety measures of recent months, including returns to mask mandates and social distancing. Others are temporarily closing due to positive cases on staff or moving to allow in only vaccinated customers.
Andrea Zopp: “As deputy mayor under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I saw firsthand the positive impact on neighborhoods of significant economic investments.”
An annual report from the state’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
As if on cue, many COVID vaccine proponents from President Biden on down to Illinois columnists have resorted over the past week to insults to encourage vaccination. That won’t work. They would do their side and everybody else a favor if they focused, instead, on a bedrock principle of medical ethics and law in America and most of the world — one that’s been largely ignored: informed consent.
The mayor’s numbers have tumbled lately, and potential legal questions loom. Her team says it doesn’t matter. But with re-election time nearing, it may.
The Chicago Board of Education approved a federal aid-infused budget amid warnings of a financial cliff that could knock it off the track needed to win back investment-grade ratings.
Galesburg, IL School District 205 Superintendent John Asplund emailed staff members announcing a new ID badge policy. School staff now have the option to change from the customary white ID badge to a yellow ID badge to indicate that they have received the covid vaccine.
The budget is balanced, but the reason largely is $1.06 billion from Washington in COVID relief money, the federation said. And while more money is coming, that pot is scheduled to run dry in 2024.
That’s problematic because CPS is sharply increasing spending as a result of COVID and the new contract, with the Chicago Teachers Union today holding a press conference to demand a voice on how Mayor Lori Lightfoot spends $4 billion in federal aid that the CTU says CPS is “is sitting on.”
In a last-minute bid to derail a project that finally appears to have a lot of momentum, opponents of the proposed Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park have released some flashy schematics of how a reimagined center might instead be built elsewhere on the South Side.
Harvey, Illinois, hired Loop Capital Markets LLC as it pursues a debt restructuring that’s the cornerstone of a consent agreement with a group of its 2007 bondholders who had sued to intercept city revenue in order to resolve defaults.
The nation’s single family home prices rose 16.6% over the previous 12 month period. That’s an all time record for the country. The Case Shiller Chicago area index rose by 11.1%, which is the 103rd consecutive month of gains and slightly more than a 7 year record but, nevertheless, we still remain in last place.
Driven up by the loss of nearly half a million square feet of tenants, the office vacancy rate in the Chicago suburbs rose to 26.1 percent as of the end of June, according to data from real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. That’s the highest mark JLL has tracked in its two decades of data and up from 25.5 percent at the end of the first quarter, which itself marked a record high.
For an employer to inflict CRT training on employees against their will can be legally problematic. And even in the public schools, promoting CRT while discriminating against expression of other viewpoints may violate the First Amendment.
Most of the membership on the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board has turned over recently, but they are sticking with the previous board on the imperative of amending Illinois’ constitutional pension protection clause. Bravo.
After two students were killed in off-campus shootings this year, the Hyde Park university faces a twin test that few of its rivals at the uppermost end of the higher education market must overcome.
Not even a global health crisis has slowed down Joe Monsueto’s recent streak of high-profile investments. Since buying the Chicago Fire FC—the city’s Major League Soccer franchise—in 2019, Mansueto has purchased the Waldorf Astoria Chicago hotel, bankrolled a $50 million office redevelopment in Humboldt Park and recently unveiled a plan to build a roughly $90 million training complex and headquarters for the soccer club on 32 acres in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood. His latest pursuit, though further from home, is just as attention-grabbing: He’s kicking tires on buying another soccer club overseas that could serve as an affiliate for the
Chicago leaders are searching for a company to build the city’s first casino, but big gambling operators are concerned that the government’s plans will be too costly to make the project feasible.
The city is calling for a megaresort with hotel rooms, meeting space and a surrounding entertainment district, according to a request for proposals issued in April. Chicago is hoping a casino will aid its
CPS planned as of Friday to ask the Board of Education as soon as next week to authorize rehiring the janitorial behemoth to clean all its school buildings, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
“To reach herd immunity against COVID-19 and rescue the economy from another downturn, employers must mandate vaccines…. The virus now is almost exclusively killing people who haven’t been vaccinated….Here in Chicago, only 51.7 percent of residents are fully vaccinated; statewide, that number rests at 50.3 percent. That’s a better level than many areas of the country, but still far short of the 70 percent threshold that’s widely considered to be the goal of public health officials seeking herd immunity.”
“It’s obvious: we cannot arrest our way out of this problem,” Lightfoot said during the press availability.
“Fundamentally, if you look at the West Side and you look at the problems, the opioid addiction that is really harming so many individuals, families and communities, the investments we have to make in human capital and the investments we have to make in infrastructure, those are why I spend so much time on the West Side,” the mayor added.
“States with the highest unemployment are all run by Democrats: Connecticut (7.9%), New Mexico (7.9%), Nevada (7.8%), California (7.7%), Hawaii (7.7%), New York (7.7%), New Jersey (7.3%) and Illinois (7.2%). Mere coincidence?” Shrinking populations, regulations and taxes and continuing the Democratic Congress’s $300 unemployment benefit bonus through Labor Day.
Deli Star was headquartered 35 miles southeast of St. Louis in Fayetteville, Illinois, for 34 years.
How many fibs can Gov. JB Pritzker pack in a ten-minute interview? Count ’em.
A republication of our Wirepoints column.
The matter is playing out in a broad debate about antitrust policy and what to do about tech companies, which may significantly change what America’s economy looks like. If not resolved in Washington, the issues may be thrust on states.
A Michigan company run by a former Chicago entrepreneur wants a federal judge to stop the lotteries that will determine who can sell recreational marijuana.
The most recent claim of the Julianna Zobrist could seal her reputation as the most ridiculed figure in Chicago since Steve Bartman.
The wholesale price of natural gas—in the Chicago area the key commodity that sets the price of power in addition to keeping homes and businesses warm in the winter—is double what it was a year ago. Futures contracts for delivery of the fuel months in advance show prices well above last winter’s persisting through the coming cold-weather months.
Essentially, the cost of all overassessed property values, each year, will now be passed onto all property taxpayers the next year.
Illinois does have one thing going for it: cheap and reliable electricity.
The state would lose that too under an 800-page climate bill Democrats in Springfield are contriving to jam through the statehouse. “The proposed energy legislation being circulated will be the largest rate hike on consumers and businesses in history,” a coalition of business groups wrote to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker last month.
Independently drawn maps that enhance electoral competition would have gone a long way toward encouraging more candidates to run for Statehouse races and ultimately more voter engagement. But despite repeated promises not to, Pritzker signed into law another decade’s worth of gerrymandered maps earlier last month.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Keith Cooper, 73, died Wednesday at around 12:30 p.m. in the Hyde Park area after two people demanded he give them his car while he ran errands. They then repeatedly punched him in the head, police said, as witnesses stepped in to try to stop the attack.
The new General Assembly learned quickly. Why bother even with excuses when voters don’t care?
United could use the aircraft to connect hubs like Chicago O’Hare International Airport to smaller routes. Some of these routes have been cut by legacy carriers because they are too expensive.
Chicago Public Schools laid out a proposed $9.3 billion fiscal 2022 budget that directs $707 million towards capital and spends down about $1 billion of the district?s $2.6 billion of federal relief to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Should this column be serious or facetious? I honestly can’t decide, for reasons to be made clear.
Up from No. 30 in 2019.
Despite reportedly spending less and receiving support from the CARES Act and other grants, Chicago’s overall financial position worsened during the pandemic. Based upon the city’s fiscal year 2020 audited financial report, Chicago had a Taxpayer BurdenTM of $43,700, earning it an “F” grade from Truth in Accounting.
While Illinois’ political establishment is boasting about what it did with the federal cash gush, other states are cutting taxes or improving services.
Take Casten up on his claim that he believes content of character, not race, should be the test. What’s the content of his character?
The man arrested has 26 felony arrests and 7 convictions.
“The status quo cannot continue—and, considering the downward path we are on, it’s not even clear that the status quo is the worst possible scenario we face. We’re a nation that over time has been politically atomized, one faction set against the other, so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that our elected leaders are not much better than we are at figuring out what’s wrong and working together to fix it. But this is the job the mayor asked for and ran hard to win, and the credentials she brought to that campaign included her track record on the Police
A suburban Northbrook family says they’re devastated after their 18-year-old son, a standout football player who was awarded a full-ride college scholarship, was fatally shot while visiting relatives in Chicago.
Casten’s full video is linked here.
According to official records of the mayor’s schedule obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, Chicago’s mayor in just over two years in office has given exclusive, one-on-one interviews to the national MSNBC network an eye-popping 40 times. That’s once every 2½ weeks—and nearly twice the 22 sit-down interviews the mayor has granted in the same period combined to Chicago’s two major daily newspapers, the Tribune and the Sun-Times.
At first glance, the results look quite good for a year made so challenging by the pandemic. But look further.
“You’re not just dealing with high water, you’re dealing with low water.” The New York Times has a new, similar column here.
Reaction has spanned the spectrum with market participants mostly saying it was deserved given the state?s fiscal progress and its COVID-19 pandemic recovery. Some said the upgrade was expected, a reason for the state’s narrowing spreads over the past few months. But they are quick to underline that’s the near-term view and chronic pension strains, past decisions that favored one-shots, an ongoing structural imbalance and out-migration weigh heavily on the state’s fiscal foundation.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
With more than a million passengers over July 4th, the airport could return to pre-COVID traffic next year, the city’s aviation chief says. And it’s on the cusp of a world-first, thanks to a huge runway redo.
“We recognize that people of color often feel unwelcome in gardens, forest preserves, and parks, a direct result of historical oppression and violence in outdoor spaces.”
“In Illinois, as in most states, jobs and services for adults with disabilities are woefully inadequate. We struggled to find programs and opportunities for the relationships that Lauren craved…. But 19 years ago, that all changed. Lauren moved to Misericordia, a remarkable community for people with intellectual disabilities near us on Chicago’s North Side.”
The people who teach our kids apparently expect you to forget that equations have two halves.
Angela Miller-May, chief investment officer, Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund: “Those visits to Africa were an experience…. We have the opportunity to boost investment and job creation in Africa while earning the returns that we need. Together, we control trillions of dollars. We can use that capital not only to benefit our stakeholders, but also to spur social and economic impact in emerging markets. We can do both. We can make money and do great things. We can do well, and we can do good.”
Dr. Allison Arwady is the Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. She called Friday with some comments on my June 28 column that was republished in the Chicago Tribune about continuing spending on contract tracing.
The CDC looked at which students had full-time in-person learning, hybrid learning or fully remote learning between September and April. Since January, the study found that in-person learning increased nationally among all groups of students, although white students continued to see the greatest gains in access.
Comment: A must-watch.
Experts say that gives organized groups like the Chicago Teachers Union, which calls mayoral control an “unmitigated disaster,” an edge.
“The latest complaint comes from Stacy Deemar, a white teacher in a K-8 school district in Evanston and Skokie, IIl., just north of Chicago. She alleges that teachers and students are required to participate in racially segregated antiracist exercises and that teachers are required to teach material depicting white people as inherently racist oppressors.”
Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) and her chief of staff were indicted Thursday on charges of conspiring to take bribes from construction contractors seeking city assistance for development project. Austin is the third active alderman facing federal criminal charges. Alds. Patrick Daley Thompson and Ed Burke face charges in separate scandals
A federal grand jury has indicted 34th Ward Ald. Carrie Austin, 72, and her chief of staff, Chester Wilson, on bribery charges. The U.S. attorney’s office says Austin conspired “to receive home improvements from construction contractors seeking city assistance” for a development project in her ward on the city’s far South Side. Austin faces four total counts, including lying to the FBI. Wilson faces similar bribery charges and one count of theft of government funds.
A new study gives Aurora homeowners and Chicago commercial landlords an extra reason to gripe about property taxes. Homes in Aurora are taxed at the highest effective rate among 53 U.S. cities included in the “50-State Property Tax Comparison Study,” an annual report published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence. Commercial properties in Chicago, meanwhile, are taxed at the second-highest rate after Detroit.
Comment: But here in Illinois, a gas tax hike goes into effect today and the new budget includes $650 million of new taxes styled as “loophole closings.”
Presented without comment.
The agency’s campus that houses McCormick Place Convention Center, a 2.6-million-square-foot facility that is the largest convention center in North America, and the Wintrust Arena has been shuttered since March 2020. One of two hotels on the campus just south of downtown Chicago remained open and the second recently reopened.
NYT columnist Bret Stephen: “Thoughtful liberals who think this is much ado about nothing should spend some time pondering how perfectly people like Ms. Lightfoot are now playing into right-wing stereotypes. They should also spend time wondering whether the ideal for which they have long fought — a society that, if not colorblind, can at least see past color — is being jeopardized by progressives who apparently can see only color. Whichever way, it shouldn’t be hard to see that trying to solve the old racism with the new racism will produce only more racism. Justice is never achieved by
S&P Dow Jones released the April CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price indices this morning showing that Chicago area single family home prices continue to soar. The 9.9% gain from last year is the highest appreciation in exactly 7 years and the 102nd consecutive month of annual gains.
Nationally, home prices increased at the fastest rate in the indexes record. The Chicago area is still in last place among the 20 metro areas tracked – the only metro stuck in the single digits.
We finally have a more comprehensive tally of the grotesquely oversized federal assistance dispensed under the guise of pandemic relief. The insanity of American fiscal and monetary policy is matched only by the gall of Illinois politicians who are using it to claim they’ve put Illinois on the right track.
“Cherry-picking statistics to minimize PR damage doesn’t help. It only creates the impression that the people at the very top of our public hierarchy don’t really understand the problem and that, ultimately, no one is capable of fixing it.”
“Morgan Stanley recaps over the weekend, “some states chose to end these benefits early – in about 10 states in the US, these benefits expired on June 19.” So what did the bank find? That not only were Republican states right all along to end benefits early, but that the primary – and biggest – reason for the unprecedented shortage in workers has been Joe BIden’s catastrophic socialist policy of having the government match or even surpass what the private sector is paying….”
Remember in May 2020 when Gov. JB Pritzker announced funding for an “army” of contact tracers to combat COVID-19? Well, armies of government workers aren’t easily disbanded, and we better hope our real army functions better than our contact tracers.
“The more we examine the bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal, the worse its details look. Consider its plan to pay for new spending in part with unemployment-benefit savings from GOP states that are recovering faster economically and ending the $300 federal bonus… Meanwhile, California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York mopped up 40% of benefit payments during the first quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The budget savings would be much greater if Democratic states ended their bonus, but they want to keep taking federal cash, even though it pays millions of Americans more not to work than to
See our own column on this linked here.
“A 1994 Gallup survey found that a larger percentage of African Americans — 58% — supported the [1994 Crime Bill] bill than whites at 49%. The only black senator, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, supported it while only 12 of the 40 members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against it.”
Just 29% of people surveyed in the U.S. said they trust the news, compared to 45% in Canada and 54% in Brazil.
The COVID-19 pandemic notwithstanding, Cook County is running a budget surplus so far this year and will enter fiscal 2022 having to fill only a relatively modest $121 million gap.
In the first five months of 2021, home sales grew by more in the city than in the larger metropolitan area, according to Crain’s analysis of data released this morning by Illinois Realtors, a statewide business group. Another sign of the Chicago market’s strength is in data released today by the National Association of Realtors. Nationwide, home sales were down 0.9 percent in May from April, the fourth consecutive month of declines in nationwide sales. By contrast, Chicago metro-area sales were up 3.7 percent in May from April. In the city, sales were
Arizona, Michigan and Texas are showing how to create resilient systems for government retirees.
The latest on the expanding school of thought in journalism that openly says facts and objectivity don’t matter.
“The state affiliates that I support would be appalled at the stance that NEA Management is taking.”
Are they? What say you, Illinois Education Association?
Like small businesses across the country, most of the shops on Roscoe Street, a neighborhood shopping district on Chicago’s North Side, are eager to get back to normal after a year in which coronavirus restrictions held back foot traffic and limited in-person dining, shopping and services like haircuts. While business is coming back, small shops are now facing unexpected challenges, like shortages of workers, materials and capital that are preventing them from fully taking advantage of the state’s reopening earlier this month.
A republication of our Wirepoints column.
Gone is any excuse for silence. CRT is in our schools due only to a loud and aggressive minority concentrated in today’s political, educational and media establishments. It will be driven into the obscurity it deserves if the majority continues to speak up.
With a public price tag already exceeding $300 million, the 23-year-long effort to rejuvenate the area around the former public housing project is set to take at least 12 more years and could approach a total of nearly $1 billion.
Home price appreciation in Northwest Indiana exceeded that in the broader Chicago metro of which the Region is a part. The Chicago-Evanston-Naperville metro placed 90th nationwide with 9.6% growth in home prices last year.
Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker (D.) signed a bill this week to change the titles for elected officials in the state from “alderman” and “congressman” to “alderperson” and “congressperson” to be more gender-inclusive.
“We see a lot of ‘hes’ and ‘hims’” in state statute, said the bill’s co-sponsor, State Representative Maurice West (D).
“The recent wrangling over the governor’s massive energy agenda in Springfield is a case in point, but it’s only the latest example of decision-making at the highest levels that includes everyone but those who will have to pick up the tab. No one on Team Pritzker, it seems, consistently stands up for the business community.”
“Part of me still believes in the healing power of spirited dialogue; still has faith in the capacity of the frank exchange of views to promote understanding, respect and possibly even lasting compromise.”
“Here’s something you can bet on: If politicians reach a deal, your electric bill will rise. Any legislation that passes almost certainly will include costly new subsidies for nuclear reactors and additional surcharges for renewable power development. Those proposals and others on the table would cost Illinois residents and businesses nearly $3 billion in the next five years alone.”
The town of Evanston, Illinois, is holding Pride and Juneteenth parades during the month of June, but canceling July 4 fireworks and Independence Day festivities.
Robin Rue Simmons, a former Evanston alderman, is perhaps at the vanguard of one fight for racial justice. Rue Simmons, whose term ended in May, led Evanston’s effort to implement reparations.She spoke with WBEZ’s Odette Yousef about how, on this Juneteenth holiday, she is thinking about the groundbreaking work she has embarked on.
Residents in one Chicago ward are “giving up” on calling the police as the city fails to protect them from violent crime, according to one city council member.
“Generational gang life isn’t just something that’s encouraged. It’s almost revered in some neighborhoods,” Lopez, whose constituents are about 67% Latino and 22% black, told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “If you really want to get to what is at the heart of a lot of this, it is gangs, and it is the borderline collapse of the family unit in
“It makes no sense, allowing adults, at higher risk of getting sick from the virus, to congregate unmasked as much as they want and not allowing the kids to take off their masks. … It’s upside down,” said Ted Dabrowski.
On May 16, she embarked on a hunger strike on behalf of one of the most ambitious and elusive goals of the U.S. racial justice movement: reparations — or making amends through payments or policy — to Black people for slavery. Bright-eyed and energetic during a recent interview, Rachelle Zola has made it to
As part of that strategy, CDPH said the department will allocate $9.6 million in COVID-19 relief funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish what officials call Healthy Chicago Equity Zones.
The fate of a $1.3 billion natural gas plant under construction in Grundy County is mainly what kept the Senate from acting yesterday on the most ambitious state energy bill in 25 years.
Will the exodus from big cities that occurred during the pandemic persist or reverse? The final verdict isn’t in, but here are some new insights.
DePaul University’s Jason Hill interviews Gad Saad on his book, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas are Killing Common Sense.
The project is also putting significant dollars into the pockets of some Obama campaign and administration alumni and others who have landed jobs with the foundation. A tax document filed last year shows 16 people, including some former staff members, making six-figure salaries, ranging from
The sprawling energy bill lawmakers are set to vote on this week is being marketed in part as recompense for Commonwealth Edison’s admitted bribery scheme aimed at winning Springfield favors over nearly a decade. But the cornerstone of that effort—ending the annual formula-rate mechanism that’s allowed ComEd to dramatically increase its delivery charges over the years—opens the door to a new rate-setting process that easily could be more lucrative for ComEd than the current one.
Pritzker and the Illinois Attorney General have some explaining to do.
Give them credit at least for being open about what they intend: No diversity of opinion about race. Wokeness shall be mandatory under pending directives for University of Illinois faculty.
Included in the tax changes, the new budget decouples Illinois from the federal 100 percent bonus depreciation deduction. By raising the cost of doing business in Illinois, the changes will lower personal income and could reduce opportunity for the state’s idled workers.
“For faculty who are currently heavily engaged in DEI efforts,” continues the statement, “this is an opportunity for them to share what they have been doing. Their DEI efforts will be considered as a strength in the evaluation process.”
Pritzker isn’t yet ready to lift the original disaster declaration he made on March 9 of last year as Illinois reported 11 known cases of COVID, as many emergency orders like the state’s eviction moratorium are attached to it.
“Whether or not the GOP plan would have held up in court, it’s clear Republican lawmakers made at least some effort to create a redistricting commission not controlled by the legislature. We rate Pritzker’s claim Mostly False.”
“New IRS data compiled by research outfit Wirepoints illustrate the flight from high- to low-tax states.”
We’ve gotten the prologue to the high-fives and backslapping we’ll be hearing from Illinois lawmakers and much of the media over the new state budget.
Illinoisans should feel insulted that their elected officials figure the public is too stupid to see through this.
Recently, the Illinois legislature passed a bill to amend the Illinois Freedom to Work Act to expand the ban on noncompetes to a larger population of workers and provide certain rights to employees who are asked to sign noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements as a condition of employment. Pritzker is expected to sign that bill.
“No one in the mainstream media will acknowledge the possibility, but there are signs everywhere that the militant progressives currently running Chicago are willing to sacrifice even the safety and rights of women and children in their quest to destroy the criminal justice system… Is Chicago’s past the nation’s prologue?”
New Illinois homebuyers, particularly at the low-cost end, may end up realizing that they bought into a surge created artificially and temporarily by the Fed. When the Fed’s largess ends, Illinois’ traditional problems and their impact on home prices may return with a vengeance.
Residential developers grumbled when the City Council approved a tougher affordable housing ordinance in April. They’re happier with the Illinois General Assembly, which has just given them something they like: tax breaks. State lawmakers passed a sweeping housing bill with property tax incentives for developers that set aside some units in their projects for low- to moderate-income residents.
After dropping as low as 86.5 percent at the end of 2020, the downtown occupancy rate rebounded to 91.1 percent in the first quarter, according to Integra. That’s still a few percentage points below 2019 levels, but you won’t hear many landlords complaining.
Even in Illinois politics, Gov. JB Pritzker’s betrayal and dishonesty on fair maps is as shameless and destructive as anything before.
“Obama Foundation President Valerie Jarrett put a new price tag on the presidential complex — ‘less than” $700 million,’ up from a $500 million estimate.”
Beginning in about a year, under a surprise bill jammed through Illinois’ state legislature in the wee hours of the morning, just before the end of the recently closed legislative session, Lake County’s circuit court system will be redivided, with the addition of at least four new “subcircuits” and an unknown number of new judges to preside in them.
A conservative political organization has won a chance to proceed with part of its federal lawsuit accusing the Illinois State Board of Elections of violating federal law by limiting access to the state’s voter registration database, and restricting the group’s ability to audit the data for irregularities.
As a candidate for governor in 2018, Pritzker voiced support for an independent commission to draw maps and removing political considerations in placing the lines. He vowed to veto any map authored by politicians, such as these.
“When I wax nostalgic about moving back, I see the terrible condition of the city and the future expectations as it relates to the fiscal situation, and I am glad I left.”
“The progressive case also increasingly suffers from its own manifest failures in urban bastions like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago, which have been losing residents and attracting far fewer immigrants while suffering among the poorest job recoveries since the onset of the pandemic.”
The Illinois General Assembly approved the MPEA’s expansion debt service appropriation for fiscal year 2022, the agency said.
In addition, the General Assembly has passed a $30 million appropriation for the authority’s corporate purposes for FY22.” the MPEA said. “Of this amount, $15 million can be used for the Authority’s incentive grant program for FY22, and the remaining $15 million can be used for the Authority’s general corporate purposes.”
The bottom line is that most Illinois lawmakers pretended the hole in the unemployment fund doesn’t exist. It was left to be addressed by future measures unknown, but they almost certainly will include higher payroll taxes on employers.
What happened in Tulsa 100 years ago matters far less than what’s happening in Chicago today…. The left’s focus on the past behavior of whites, while ignoring the present behavior of blacks, might offer some people catharsis, and it might help groups like the NAACP or Black Lives Matter stay relevant. But where is the evidence that such an approach facilitates black upward mobility?”
San Francisco Bay area, Boston and Chicago all saw significant outflows, the data show. There’s no telling whether many of those moves will prove permanent, especially as the pandemic wanes in the U.S. and many companies eye a return to the office.
Pritzker gets a $650 million corporate tax loophole closed, the data center industry delays a bill it fought and the governor’s $42 billion budget is teed up for final passage, as lawmakers sprint to the end of the spring session.
They died to protect a democratic republic, essential elements of which are likewise simple – democratic rule bounded by certain unalienable rights.
Yet both of those elements are being unwound today. Should that continue, Americans will gradually come to see that the foundations of government legitimacy are gone. That looming threat should be our primary concern today, for if Americans conclude that their government no longer derives its powers justly – in the manner articulated by the Founders — then division, strife and violence far worse than we have seen in
Comment: Page is wrong to say this was a “tempest in a teapot.” We have heard from multiple, livid Loyola parents and alums to the contrary.
Under Illinois emergency orders, which Illinois courts allow to persist with no time limit, the list of trampled rights is almost as long as the Bill of Rights itself, including freedoms of association, travel, assembly, religion, property, equal protection and due process. Two ruling by Illinois courts this past week continued the trend.
Suppose you wanted to draft the most comprehensive K-12 school policy you could for mandatory thought, speech and conduct that complies with Critical Race Theory or wokism, as it’s more often called. You probably couldn’t top the Chicago Public School district’s pending Culturally Responsive Education and Diversity Policy.
CPS is going for broke and exposing, once again, the huge lies by the Illinois State Board of Education when it claimed that its new statewide teaching standards aren’t about political indoctrination, classroom curriculum or teacher evaluation. It’s expressly about all of that and much more,
A famous Supreme Court quip is that the U.S. Constitution isn’t a suicide pact, but what about the Illinois constitution? After years of fiscal recklessness, the state’s credit ratings are a notch above junk. Yet the politicians in Springfield now want to add collective bargaining to the Illinois bill of rights, putting union power on the same footing as due process and religious freedom.
A republication of our Wirepoints column. Having now passed in both the Illinois House and Senate, the amendment will now go to referendum on the November 2022 ballot.
“Let’s say you’ve been planning on leaving the Chicago area for another city. Well, yesterday’s release of the March CoreLogic Case Shiller home price indices by S&P Dow Jones says you’re basically screwed.”
Parents of students at a private Catholic school in Chicago are raising concerns that “woke” ideology that has infiltrated secular schools has also extended into Catholic schools.
“The three areas in which Lightfoot has failed most significantly are on budgetary matters, education, and crime”
Drafters of the proposal have made it deliberately and deceptively ambiguous and misleading, but also radically broad and open-ended. By creating a new constitutional right for themselves and their agenda they would be throwing a cluster bomb toward everything in their way. The amendment’s full impact may not be entirely certain but it would, for sure, clear a path to new, unimagined public union power.
A republication of our Wirepoints column.
“…think of Wirepoints as an archetype for a community that cares and drives social engagement.”
To see the latest deliberate extension of racial strife, check out the Chicago Sun-Times story on Stanley Moore of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Here are the key facts drawn from the article:
All Illinois high schools will be required to provide instruction in media literacy under House Bill 234. It passed the House and is poised for passage in the Senate.
The concept and most of the bill, which is reproduced below, seem harmless enough. But does anybody seriously expect the subject to be taught objectively?
Sen. Karina Villa (D-West Chicago) is the chief Senate sponsor. Young people are “vulnerable to persecution and misinformation,” she said, as reported by Capitol News Illinois. Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro), in a Senate hearing, questioned how objective schools could be in
“The University of Illinois board of trustees last week entered a no-confidence vote against America’s greatest Supreme Court Chief Justice. Starting in July, the John Marshall Law School in Chicago will be known simply as the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law…. Some progressives want to throw that out the window, and instead intimidate the Court into their desired policy outcomes. Maybe that’s the real reason they want us to forget Chief Justice John Marshall.”
Automatic ticket regimes have turbocharged many politicians’ lifestyles. Bribery scandals have enveloped automated ticketing regimes in Texas, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois, and elsewhere. The former top salesman for Redflex, one of the largest providers of red light cameras, testified that his company had “sent gifts and bribes to officials in at least 14 states.” (Redflex denied the allegation.) Last year, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza condemned red light ticket regimes as “a program that’s broken and morally corrupt” and recommended ending them across the state.
“Beliefs aren’t facts.” That would be an unremarkable title for what is an unremarkable column except for who wrote it. In a new column in Persuasion, Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro took on the illiberal tyranny that permeates most of higher education.
Lightfoot, who hit the headlines earlier this week for refusing to do one-on-one interviews with white journalists, said: ‘Getting a vote of no confidence from that guy is a badge of honor, and I accept it.”
The task force report noted, “that despite Chief Justice Marshall’s legacy as one of the nation’s most significant U.S. Supreme Court justices, the newly discovered research regarding his role as a slave trader, slave owner of hundreds of slaves, pro-slavery jurisprudence, and racist views render him a highly inappropriate namesake for the Law School.”
Comment: This amendment would go much further than banning right-to-work. See our Quickpoint on that here.
After sitting empty for 18 years, a huge former Motorola factory in Harvard could become something that doesn’t exist in Illinois today: a big digital hub and warehouse fueled by the sun. A Canadian venture has agreed to buy the 325-acre campus in the McHenry County town, with plans to convert it into a solar-powered data center.
“Why does the mayor of Chicago think that it’s all right for her to announce that she won’t talk with journalists who are the wrong skin color? Well, I’m afraid that one of the many bad results of the Supreme Court’s penchant in the past for carving out exceptions to the laws against racial discrimination has been that — no matter how much the Court thinks it has qualified and limited those exceptions — it is assumed by most people that they are much broader than they are.”
Former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard accused Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Friday of harboring anti-White racism and called for her to step down over her remarks this week about the city’s media landscape.
In a classic off-hours news dump, Illinois legislative Democrats late Friday released their proposal as to how to reapportion state Senate and House districts for the first time in a decade.
Though Republicans instantly howled, the Democrats gave every indication of enacting the map as soon as next week, scheduling a series of formal hearings next Tuesday and Wednesday, May 25 and 26.
I truly don’t get this, as a matter of politics and policy.
As reported by Center Square, both the Illinois Senate and House are advancing resolutions that would put a constitutional amendment in front of voters to lock in union power. The amendment, if passed by three-fifths votes in each chamber and approved by voters, would prohibit municipalities and the state from ever taking any measure that would impair the ability of workers to collectively bargain over wages, hours, terms and conditions.
In other words, it would constitutionally ban any attempt to reform collective bargaining rules for
Remember when Gov. JB Pritzker warned of drastic tax increases or spending cuts if his proposed “fair tax” increase were to be defeated last November? And Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said that all residents of the state could see an income tax hike of at least 20% if the fair tax went down?
Well, the tax went down in flames. And yet none of what they warned about happened.
Now lawmakers are at it again. Illinois House Majority Leader Greg Harris (D-Chicago) said Thursday, “If we do have to cut $1.3 billion. I
Instead of calling out the racism, some in Chicago media used it to fake deep conversations on race—the kinds they learned about in White Fragility. In other words, they were too terrified to
The Tax Foundation this month published what it calls a “landmark comparison” of corporate tax costs in all 50 states. It’s certainly the most comprehensive study of its kind and was done in collaboration with KPMG, the accounting, tax and advisory firm. The full study is here and includes lots of interactive tools and comparisons.
The study calculates and analyzes the tax burdens of eight model firms: a corporate headquarters, a research and development facility, a technology center, a data center, a shared services center, a distribution center, a capital-intensive manufacturer, and a labor-intensive manufacturer. Each firm
The former UK Independence Party leader and architect of the country’s “Brexit” from the European Union has been touring the U.S. and recently visited Chicago. ” In Chicago,” he said, “I saw a city that was a complete and utter ghost town. The political differences
State Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford accepted campaign contributions from a Loretto Hospital contractor and Caribbean travel as part of her board duties.
Important, reasonable questions are left unanswered, so the state will probably go on borrowing with no concern about them.
“We must once again transform this challenging land into traversable terrain. And we can do it by not only building new transportation networks, but by building new bridges to equality and prosperity.”
“This is about economic inclusion of African American-owned businesses in the U.S. economy,” said Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group. “McDonald’s takes billions from African American consumers and gives almost nothing back. The biggest trade deficit in America is the trade deficit between White corporate America and Black America, and McDonald’s is guilty of perpetuating this disparity. The economic exclusion must stop immediately.”
Our own story on this decision is here.
“The limp progressive response to rising crime and disorder has benefited Texas and Florida.”
And as convenient as it may be for Randi and her locals, including the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), to forget their role in this response, it’s worth revisiting here. When school districts tried to reopen last fall, the unions met them with a display that could have been mistaken for farce. In Washington DC, the union filled body bags and dumped them in front of district headquarters. In Chicago, the CTU threatened to strike, made their members sit outside during winter in Chicago to continue remote learning instead of walking into half-empty buildings, made an interpretive dance video, and suggested
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times Monday, Gov. JB Pritzker intends to keep expanded unemployment benefits, unlike 18 states that have curtailed them to get people back to work.
Pritzker made only two points, according the the article.
First, “There are people who are afraid to go back to work … and those are legitimate reasons people might want to remain on unemployment,” Pritzker said. “I don’t want to pull the rug out from under people who have certainly legitimate reasons for needing unemployment.”
Does he think the vaccine is effective and safe or not? He claims
“In his recent column, Joe Cahill asserts that the Consumer & Climate First Act that has been introduced in Springfield is not good for consumers because it doesn’t require ComEd to compensate them as a result of its past conduct. What that bill and others do is require an audit of ComEd’s past work on the power grid, the idea being that we should first evaluate the work before we claim it was bad.”
This headline and link are from a national source 12 months ago:
This one is from last week:
What changed? A torrent cash from the federal government and the Federal Reserve Bank, which are now joined at the hip. We wrote about it here as have many others. Staggering, indeed. Staggering madness. You will pay for it either through taxes or inflation.
-Mark Glennon
Let me get this straight. You want me to invest in a business that thumbs its nose at half its addressable market, do I have that right?
Illinois’ borrowing through the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity Facility provided a lifeline for critical services during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the state should be allowed to use its incoming federal coronavirus relief money to pay it off, Comptroller Susana Mendoza tells the federal government.
Three men, including a well-known rapper, were shot Saturday morning at a River North parking garage, according to Chicago police and multiple sources. The incident involved a group of men who were “all shooting at each other,” according to a police spokesperson who cited preliminary information.
Some 1,600 jobs are being cut at a Jeep Cherokee factory in northern Illinois as automakers continue being plagued by the global shortage of semiconductors.
The state and federal governments have granted $67 million for a project at City Water, Light and Power aimed at capturing carbon dioxide from coal before emissions reach the air.
Rep. Chuy Garcia, now in his second term in Congress, will introduce legislation today to create job opportunities for young people from historically disadvantaged communities like the ones he represents in Chicago.
All year long, public school officials in Chicago and across the country have worried about high school students who have been chronically absent and are getting Fs during pandemic remote learning.
Last Wednesday alone, House committees approved 107 Senate bills for floor action and passed 227 during the full week. Senate committees approved 100 House bills last week. The biggest problem with this haphazard flood of bills is that many require mandates for additional state spending.
With vaccines now available to everybody in America age 17 and over, two numbers may be of most interest: How many vaccinated people have died from the virus and how many of those under age 17 have died.
You probably will be surprised at how extraordinarily low both numbers are:
-Of the 115 million Americans fully vaccinated, 223 have subsequently died.
-Of the 73 million Americans under age 17, 287 deaths have been COVID-related.
Think about that in terms of probability:
-The chances of dying even if you were vaccinated to date have been .0002%. That’s two ten-thousandths of one
Illinois Treasurer Susana Mendoza recently wrote to the credit rating agencies asking for an upgrade, as reported this week. Primarily, she cited progress in reducing the state’s bill backlog, which is now down to about $4 billion, a number that probably can be considered pretty close to normal.
It doesn’t hurt to ask. Maybe the credit raters will agree; they have their own standards and I can’t speculate on their response.
But for ordinary Illinoisans, here’s the real question: Has the state really done anything to fix its structural deficit problems?
Well, the state
McDonald’s is using its packaging to promote COVID-19 vaccination. Gov. JB Pritzker tweeted this yesterday:
Obesity is a huge and under-reported part of the COVID story. Seventy-eight percent of patients hospitalized for COVID have been overweight or obese. In countries where less than half of the adult population is classified as overweight, the risk for death from COVID-19 was about a 10th of the levels in countries with higher shares of overweight adults.
Interestingly, obesity may even increase the risk of getting infected in
The Illinois Senate passed a widely reported bill to ban hair discrimination in Illinois schools after spending plenty of time on it – two hearings in its Education Committee on different versions.
But on Wednesday, when the measure arrived in the House, it was quickly assigned to the Rules Committee, which usually means a bill is dead for the time being.
Maybe somebody in the House had the sense to see Illinoisans would prefer that their lawmakers spend their time on other problems. The bill had started to catch national attention. An article on it in People
Chicago and Illinois will make their case with the Treasury Department to alter American Rescue Plan guidance that in its current form would scuttle plans to repay COVID-19 related borrowing with the aid.
The Treasury’s eagerly awaited guidance lays out in 151 pages how local and state and tribal governments can use their share of the $350 billion of ARP funds.
“Is this really where we’re going to land in dealing with the situation? A problem was created when the federal government rushed to give away a bunch of “free money” without putting any caps on the benefit to prevent it from exceeding what workers were making before Uncle Sam shut down their employers’ businesses. So now we’re going to address the problem by… giving away more free money? You’re telling me we’ve reached the point where we will literally have to bribe people to go back to work.”
Going easy on bad behavior makes life difficult for those students who are in school to get an education.
Schools were pressured to discipline students, or not, based on race rather than behavior, and many administrators and teachers obliged.
In New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—the nation’s three largest school systems—reductions in suspensions and expulsions were followed by an uptick in bullying and other disruptive behavior. Students and teachers alike have reported feeling less safe. Fighting, gang activity and drug use have increased.
Nearly a year after Northwestern Pritzker School of Law lost its dean to a role within the broader university, it has found a successor: Hari Osofsky, an energy transition and climate change scholar who is currently dean of Penn State Law.
Both Chicago and the State of Illinois had earlier indicated use of some of the money to reduce debt.
“Illinois’ state-level pension crisis gets all the attention, but there’s another crisis brewing right in people’s backyards,” said Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, a fiscal policy group based in Chicago.
The group is independent, but has advocated for changes to Illinois’ pension system — pushing for a move for new employees to a 401(k)-style system that would suspend cost-of-living increases until pensions are fully funded. It
“Some of the smartest people I ever saw were in trading pits. They might have had a college education, and they might not have. There weren’t a lot of Ivy-educated or elite school-educated people on the floor. Not too many MBA’s either…. Most of us didn’t respect people from that part of the world, and they didn’t respect us either.”
Gov. JB Pritzker has proposed cutting the current 75% tax credit to 40% for the Invest in Kids Scholarship Tax Credit Program. It’s for low-income families who send their kids to private K-12 schools.
It’s the only thing close to school choice that Illinois has, which is why teachers’ unions despise it. There seems to be no opposition to the program from anybody except teachers’ unions and officeholders who answer to them.
Illinois schools are already getting a $5 billion grant this year from the federal government under the new American Rescue Plan, and Pritzker <a href="https://chicago.chalkbeat.org/2021/5/6/22423715/gov-pritzker-reverses-course-on-flat-illinois-school-budget-with-pledge-for-350m"
Illinois is currently in Phase 4 of its reopening plan. It is preparing to enter the “Bridge Phase” this week, which are in the right column on the state’s chart below.
What sense does this make when the vaccine is now readily available to everyone over the age of 16 and those who impose this rule say the vaccine is safe and effective? That leaves only those under 16, but as of May 5, just 282 deaths involving COVID have been recorded in the U.S. since the pandemic began for those age 0 to
In a near-unanimous action, the House voted 114-0 to approve a bill sponsored by Rep. Mark Batinick that would impose a 12-month ban on any board member of a public pension system going to work for that system or any of its vendors. Four representatives did not vote.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Demand is so intense that Illinois, the only state to tap the Federal Reserve’s pandemic emergency-lending facility, recently sold three-year bonds at yields near 1%.
According to a Friday article in Instapundit, Northwestern University is trying to impose a “critical-studies woke dean” on the law school, and the faculty is fighting back.
The nominee for dean is Hari M. Osofsky, apparently submitted by the university’s provost. A hastily scheduled meeting and vote by the law school faculty is set for Monday, the Instapundit article indicates. The abbreviated process seems to be as much of an issue as Osofsky, about whom I
“Donald Trump should be banned from any form of social media other than scrawling on bathroom walls. And even then he should be made to wash it off when he gets caught,” said the Chicago Sun-Times in an editorial last week.
They apparently think a permanent ban should be a sure thing. “As long as the former president lies about everything, Facebook may continue to ban him,” they wrote. “And he will always lie about everything.” The Sun-Times is not alone. CNN, for example, published at least two opinion pieces calling for a permanent social media
“While some have become centers for concentrated affluence in the modern city, others have become centers for economic and social ills. Chicago is a case study in these patterns. Last year it led the nation in homicides. It recorded another 195 this year through May 2, up 35 from the same period in 2020.”
How about we expand preferences in hiring and promotion to base them on any characteristic whatsoever that might disadvantage somebody, regardless of whether the characteristic is inherited or self-inflicted? That’s in a bill moving full steam ahead in Springfield and it’s a doozy. It’s House Bill 3914, the Positive Action Act. It already passed the Illinois House and is moving in the Senate.
While Illinois teachers unions fought to keep many public schools closed, notably in Chicago, many private schools reopened for in-person learning, often adopting a hybrid model. Now, the teachers unions want to give the state authority to mandate one set of health standards that all schools, public and private, must follow.
“If Bill HB 2789 becomes law, it empowers the state to impose new health mandates on in-person learning in ALL schools, including nonpublic.”
We’ve written for years about why government budgets and claims of “balanced budgets” are fraudulent. The problem is that budgets count borrowed money and asset sales as if they are income, and ignore growing debts like pension liabilities.
Testimony has been taken recently on this issue by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which is finally focused on it. Lots of Illinoisans and big names testified to the same criticisms we have.
Video is linked here. You can view the individual testimony at the time links here– 0:00 Sheila Weinberg, 34:45 Bill
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Two bits of good news, for a change.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot told the city’s bond investors today that she wants to “force a solution” to Chicago’s pension crisis, which she said is the city’s biggest problem and is “unsustainable.” “Springfield can’t keep doing things to us….[This is] a classic unfunded mandate, she said.” Details are in stories by the Sun-Times and Crain’s.
Yes! Forcing a solution is long overdue, and the buck stops in Springfield. Let’s hope she is serious and that the can-kicking ends. If she really wants change, she should be leading
In a speech to potential investors, the mayor combines optimism about the city’s future with a dire warning.
Assume, for purposes here, that the prevailing orthodoxy is right – that COVID vaccines are highly effective and safe. Who, then, is being protected by masking and other remaining restrictions? Adults who choose not to be vaccinated.
The vaccine is now readily available to everyone over the age of 16. That leaves only those under 16, but you may be shocked by how low the risk of COVID is to them. As of May 5, just 282 deaths involving COVID have been recorded in the U.S. since the pandemic began for those age 0 to 17. With
It took decades for a consensus to form about the folly of federal policy at the outset of the Great Depression. This time, the reverse blunder and its consequences won’t take long to figure out. They are in plain view already.
Chief executive officers from across the country have once again ranked Illinois as one of the worst states to do business. For the eleventh year in a row, Illinois placed 48th in the 17th annual Best and Worst States for Business survey from the Chief Executive Group. The Connecticut-based business media company surveyed 383 CEOS from companies with annual revenues between $50 million and over $1 billion.
The exchange operator CME Group Inc. said it would permanently close most of its open-outcry trading pits in Chicago, ending one of the world’s last vestiges of old-fashioned floor trading.
No state has seen more gun sales this year than Illinois. Federal authorities there have completed nearly 4.3 million gun background checks since January, including more than 955,000 submitted last month. That’s more background checks than the next five states combined.
As a federal moratorium gets set to expire, experts fear many homeowners could lose their residences.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has lost key players in the police reform arena as she grapples with fallout from multiple CPD controversies, blown consent decree deadlines and simmering debate in the City Council over civilian oversight of the police.
Senate President Harmon says his intention is to enact an all-elected plan this spring, perhaps after a transition period—the mayor’s objections notwithstanding.
This has nothing to do with health and safety. It is yet another power grab by teachers unions intent on destroying private competition in any way they can.
“Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker campaigned in 2018 against partisan gerrymandering, saying he would ‘pledge to veto’ any 2022 map drawn by the state Legislature…. Gov. Pritzker now says he’ll be satisfied with a map drawn by his legislative allies. In a recent press conference he walked back his veto pledge and scored Republicans for
The Chicago Teachers Union went so far as to tell their members not to reveal if they’ve received the vaccine to thwart school reopening plans.
Comment: This project has taken longer than it took to build the Hoover Dam or win WWII.
America’s youngest students are being bombarded with classroom activism and indoctrination that is inappropriate not only developmentally but for public school systems in general.
Obstructing reporters who cover the government is just about the last thing we need is, so it’s no surprise that the Illinois General Assembly does just that.
The CEO Magazine article is linked here.
“I mean, really, I’m living the life over here.”
Comment: This is a good place for our occasional reminders that our links to third party sources includes those we do not agree with, as here. This is precisely the time that we most need standardized tests — to measure how much damage was done to students over the past year.
“People like [Adam] Kinzinger delivering their message do not seem like radicals or extremists. They seem reasonable. Kinzinger has learned this tactic and executed this persona with perfection, yet his allegiances are anything but reasonable.”
Statistics included in a news release from the Chicago Police Department reveal that a troubling rise in gun violence this year shows little sign of slowing down. The city had five fewer homicides this April than last April, but the number of shooting victims increased to 299 from 225.
Some of the post office’s staffing problems — mainly when it comes to clerks — existed before COVID, which only worsened those shortages.
Gary Rabine is a candidate for governor.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is facing a political buzzsaw on the subject of political mapmaking, that once-every-decade, winner-takes-all process where the party in charge of the legislature gets to draw new political boundaries.
By Stephanie Farmer, associate professor of sociology at Roosevelt University.
Cops say masked teens with a thirst for violence and joyrides are terrorizing the city. An examination of arrests reveals a narrative built on shoddy data and anecdotal evidence.
“The governor’s highly anticipated bill to scrub the carbon from Illinois’ power sector is expansive to say the least. And it also appears expensive…. Money for all these major initiatives would come from the same source: business and residential ratepayers across the state.”
Why are there any remaining restrictions on vaccinated people?
A 2019 complaint filed by an Illinois public school teacher led to a finding that as part of a year-long course on equity and diversity, seventh- and eighth-graders participated in a white privilege awareness exercise that required them to remain “in silence” and with “eyes lowered” as they responded to a facilitator’s prompts. About a dozen lawsuits and administrative complaints have been filed since 2018, with another wave planned this summer by conservative public interest law firms and private attorneys. The common thread of these legal challenges is the inescapable logic that making accommodations for critical race theory will erode
The nation’s single family home prices rose 12.0% over the previous year.
Alas, the Chicago area once again trailed the other 19 major metro areas tracked by Case Shiller with a mere 8.6% annual appreciation rate for single family homes.
A reprint of our Wirepoints article.
Basecamp, a Chicago-based company that’s developed a reputation for its tech counter-culture ways, instituted new policies this week that ask employees to refrain from engaging in conversations about political and societal issues while at work.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker today gave his strongest signal yet that, regardless of what he said in the past, he’s now prepared to sign new legislative and congressional district maps drawn without significant Republican input.
Trustee UMB NA, which represents holders of the $170 million of debt issued for the Better Housing Foundation projects, reported that it is working to connect bondholders with a securities litigation firm this spring. Whether that leads to a lawsuit is yet to be decided.
“I’m moving back because after a nightmare of a year, Chicago is poised for a breakout decade. And I want in.”
It’s all there. All of what idealogues are confident they have now achieved in converting education into political dogma, complete with laughter about how they have captured the education establishment.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Illinois’ political establishment is far out of touch with the general public on the racial dogma now forced on students from kindergarten through college. Yet a stunning two-thirds of Illinoisans say they don’t speak up, thereby ceding control to an intolerant, extremist minority.
They got $1.5 billion in fees for handling the federal PPP loans. BMO Harris topped the list — at least $232 million in fees — helping it have ‘a good quarter’ in early 2021.
The top executives at Blue Cross of Illinois’ parent company got big raises last year, as health insurance corporations emerged largely unscathed from the economic fallout of the pandemic. Adding insult to injury, insurers are overpricing premiums in the individual market, so much so that they had to return money—$2.1 billion—under the rules of the Affordable Care Act.
Paul Schimpf, former Illinois state senator and Republican candidate for Illinois governor: “In addition to a fundamental misunderstanding of the science, Pritzker’s desire to ignore other elected officials and go it alone on the pandemic will go down as one of his greatest leadership failures.”
“I believe the officer who shot the 13-year-old should not be charged with a crime nor treated like a criminal nor be disciplined, though it’s clear he made a grievous and fatal error.”
“It’s time to once again expose why we believe many parts of the numerous Executive Orders the Governor has issued are outside his authority.”
One historical work that students are upset about is the Bible.
Former IL state rep Jeanne Ives: “Legislative leaders and Gov. J.B. Pritzker know that if this program had been debated separately, outside the capital bill, it would have failed. Illinoisans should tell their legislators to end this program immediately.”
“We find households are moving away relatively more from areas with greater remote work jobs, more stringent pandemic-related restrictions, and areas with higher rent-levels during the pandemic compared to normal times,” they wrote. “Households are moving to areas with fewer cases, less restrictions, lower density, and lower rent relatively more.” States with the highest numbers of residents leaving included California, Washington, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Colorado and Arizona.
The murdered good Samaritan leaves behind a wife and infant daughter.
The announcement comes just as many colleges and universities have announced required vaccinations for in-person learning during the upcoming fall semester.
An ill-advised amendment tacked onto a shell bill passed out of committee on Wednesday in the Illinois House. It would bar anyone from becoming a Cook County Board of Review commissioner who is not a licensed attorney. That would weed out a lot of good government types. It also would weed out many experts in real estate and appraisals, whom you would think would be ideal candidates to sit on a board that hears appeals of property assessments set by the county assessor.
And who happen to be licensed attorneys? Why, the three incumbents on the board, all of whom
“Not only did one of [Kim Foxx’s] assistants make a terrible, consequential mistake in court alleging Toledo was armed at the moment he was shot, Foxx also admitted she didn’t watch the video evidence herself before her prosecutor went to court in one of the first appearances linked to the Toledo case — a court appearance involving the person Toledo allegedly was with that night.”
In an interview with the Sun-Times, ex. Supt. Charlie Beck criticized David Brown’s decision to create roving citywide teams of cops to fight crime, although he said he is rooting for Chicago and Brown to “do well.”
Dan McConchie (R-Lake Zurich), minority leader of the Illinois Senate: He called for nonpartisan mapmaking. Five years later, Illinois Democrats seem to have forgotten Mr. Obama’s admonition. With majorities in both houses of the General Assembly, they are preparing to ram through a new partisan state legislative map. More brazenly, they plan to do it without even consulting the most accurate data set that every unit of government traditionally uses when drawing such maps—the decennial census.
Comment: Founding members of the “SALT Caucus include Illinois Reps. Danny Davis, Brad Schneider and Lauren Underwood, who is SALT Caucus Vice Chair. Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth have also been outspoken supporters of repealing the SALT cap.
“In Chuck Percy and Mark Kirk’s old stomping grounds, the GOP rhetoric has taken a decidedly rightward turn. Fair enough—but is that a winning strategy?”
By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.
Naperville Community Unit School District 203 Superintendent Dan Bridge: “The deaths of George Floyd and others and the recent verdict require us to be responsive to the emotional well-being of students and staff. Emotional responses from students could manifest in different ways. As educators, we are uniquely positioned to serve as allies and advocates. A trauma-sensitive school environment can benefit all students.”
Dare we suggest that the Illinois Department of Public Health should read more left-leaning media? Maybe so because it’s indeed that side of the press that has been most aggressively documenting the case against one of the department’s central messages.
Hoping to flex a little Springfield muscle, mayors representing hundreds of municipalities in metropolitan Chicago today launched a campaign to get lawmakers to stop dipping into the share of state income tax receipts meant for cities and villages, with hundreds of millions of dollars a year at stake.There are distinctly mixed signs as to how the mayors will fare, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office standing by its view that if municipalities want help, they ought to get behind his plan to close $900 million in “corporate tax loopholes.”
The public agency that manages Chicago’s convention center campus expects to draw from state sales taxes to fully cover debt service this year and will return to the market for more debt restructuring this summer as the pandemic?s fiscal toll mounts.
“I am uneasy about the actions taken against an attorney for a statement that could have been clarified in both court and in public. I am also concerned with the lack of specifically on the error and the failure to confirm the basic facts on the gun forensics.”
Lightfoot earlier supported an all-elected board. But she “has since come to her senses — as I see it — and changed camps, evidently realizing that subjecting the administration of public schools to the grubby shake-and-howdy of big-city politics is not the best way to go. Though it allows a mayor to wash her hands of bad student outcomes and toxic labor negotiations, it opens the door to ideological proxy battles waged by high-dollar donors from all over the country.”
Wirepoints created a set of searchable databases that provide the estimated allocation of the $360 billion in direct government aid to states, counties and cities under the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
It’s particularly nice to see bipartisan support form around legislation that will help Illinois small businesses.
One of two people arrested, Anthony McCullom III, 20, was charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct for allegedly being part of a large crowd seen pushing and shoving officers. His mother is Black Lives Matter Chicago Executive Director Amika Tendaji.
Chicago’s revenue for the first two months of 2021 was 0.6% below projections in the budget approved late last year, finance officials said Wednesday in their first quarterly update to the City Council since the pandemic began.
Pritzker hopes that by undoing the SALT cap he will reduce wealthy Illinoisans’ opposition to higher state taxes and maybe even gain some supporters ahead of next year’s election. But in Illinois, where tax dollars flow to a bottomless pension pit, Pritzker’s focus should be on policy. Growing jobs for middle– and low-income residents should be the priority—not politics.
In one segment with just two sentences, they managed to include three of the most dishonest and regularly repeated claims Illinois politicians often make.
“Illinois’ chronic structural budget and pension strains will persist long after it spends down $7.5 billion of new federal relief so lawmakers should avoid digging the hole any deeper.”
“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.” -Mark Twain
“We believe a solution exists to break ground on the South Side and transcend economic barriers while protecting the environment and preserving our parks. The question is, will anyone look at the trees and park space rather than the parking spaces and politics.”
“After we worked together to achieve a balanced budget in 2019, our state, like all the others, was hit last year by an unprecedented global pandemic that has threatened the health and safety of Illinoisans and strained our state coffers. COVID-19 temporarily interrupted the progress we were making to undo the damage left behind by Gov. Bruce Rauner, who saddled state residents with massive additional deficit spending and caused the state to suffer eight credit rating downgrades in just four years.”
Illinois ranked #6 on list of where small businesses have the greatest potential to bounce back after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The failure to resume the normal rhythm of schooling in historically progressive states amounts to the most significant failure of public policy in a generation.”
Pritzker shows Mayor Lightfoot that public unions are his priority—school reopening, not so much. The union would rather not reopen at all this school year. And thanks to legislation signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the district can’t require it. The statute repeals part of an Illinois law that had restricted the teachers’ right to strike over subjects other than wages and benefits.
Politicians and so-called experts have been blind to the need to balance the direct risk of the virus, however small that risk may be in some circumstances, against the economic and indirect but enormous health effects of shutdowns.
The Swiss billionaire who is part of a bid to buy Tribune Publishing for $680 million is considering turning the Chicago Tribune into a nonprofit organization, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Trillions of dollars of federal COVID-19 relief checks have been sent out across the country to help people buy food and pay rent. In Chicago, they’re also helping to fuel gun sales — legally and illegally. Law enforcement officials say they’re been building cases against people who have used their pandemic-relief checks to buy guns and illegally resell them on the street.Law-abiding people are buying guns with their relief checks, too.
Nobody should be surprised. Hypocrisy and slogans rule in the kingdom of virtue signalers.
Illinois, which started sales in 2020, took in about $200 million from all marijuana-related taxes and fees in 2020. The state is using 10% of that money to pay off its backlog of unpaid bills. They also are making about $31 million available as social equity grants. Illinois officials have said the revenue is higher than expected.
The states where property-tax rates are the highest didn’t change, despite the overall increase in property taxes nationwide. New Jersey had the highest effective property-tax rate at 2.2%, followed by Illinois (2.18%), Texas (2.15%), Vermont (1.97%) and Connecticut (1.92%). Hawaii had the lowest rate in the country at 0.37%, followed by Alabama at 0.44%.
The changes include: consideration of criminal histories under Illinois Human Rights Act; amendments to Illinois Business Corporations Act regarding employee demographics; and new equal pay requirements (including whistleblower protection for reporting violations of the new requirements).
Ford plans to temporarily shut down the Chicago Assembly Plant and lay off workers next week as a result of the global semiconductor shortage that’s greatly disrupted the automotive industry.
Like the pilot program, the proposed ordinance yet again increases the percentage of affordable units required while offering no economic offset in return. This approach will further stifle new development and, therefore, work against the goals of the city and local developers. It also leads to fewer construction-related jobs, not to mention lost real estate tax revenue.
A few weeks ago, New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC was on the verge of acquiring Tribune Publishing Co. —home to the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and other U.S. metro newspapers—with seemingly no one in its way.
Then it offended one of its partners in the deal, setting off a battle that could help shape the future of local news in America.
Comment: Softball at its purest. Not a single question about any of the long list of wrongheaded, partisan activities by Frerichs.
The Biden administration has grand dreams for mass transit. In its blue-sky vision, subways and buses will do everything from reducing traffic congestion to curbing climate change. But like generals preparing for the last war while failing to imagine how the next one will differ, it has the perfect strategy for an era that has passed.
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Jim grew up on the Southwest Side and went to St. Bede the Venerable grade school and Bogan High School. He never forgot the hot, sticky smell of Vietnam. And he never forgot the eight Army buddies he lost there
Chicago will host a virtual investors’ conference May 6 with the municipal market looking for insights into how the city will use its $1.8 billion of new federal relief, manage rising pension payments and the long-term COVID-19 fiscal fallout.
What?s at stake is whether the public is being misled by when a governmental general fund is listed in financial statements as balanced while omitting those long-term debts.
“I implore GASB to stop this confusion and bewilderment,” wrote Sheila Weinberg, founder & CEO of Truth in Accounting in a comment letter. “Our representative form of government is being harmed.”
Illinois is among the states that critics say have downplayed their tens of billions of dollars of unfunded long-term debts and should be forced by new GASB rules to become more transparent.
Competition for talent has become cutthroat in Chicago’s restaurant world as COVID restrictions loosen and diners venture out again. Workers are tantalized with more money and options, and employers are poaching from competitors.
Conservative commentators such as Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire and John Nolte of Breitbart labeled the plan as affirmative action, unleashing a wave of rants on Twitter, topping 10,000 tweets and trending as a political topic.
The Chicago River flows backward. Due to a feat of civil engineering completed around 1900, it flows backward. Its liquidity goes the wrong way. Unfortunately, that is what is happening for the Chicago municipal pension system, too. Its liquidity is flowing the wrong way.
The essence of progressivism’s agenda is to create a government-centered society by increasing government’s control of society’s resources, then distributing those resources in ways that increase the dependency of individuals and social groups on government.
Here’s more on Hansjorg Wyss, the 85-year-old Wyoming resident who is part of the team making a $680 million offer for Tribune Publishing.
The potential for an agreement does not mean an end is in sight, and Sharkey said he foresaw more points of tension around the start of next school year and a significant number of students continuing to stay home.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Hypocrisy and dishonesty have no limits in politics. The SALT deduction is just another example.
Chicago public school parents, if you want your children educated, you have no choice: Put them in a private school if you can afford it or move somewhere that puts education over teachers’ unions.
Ask yourself this: What’s different now? If it’s sensible to target seniors now why wasn’t that true earlier?
A bill to overturn a 1997 state rent control ban is headed for a vote.
Comment: We wrote to the same effect earlier here. Don’t underestimate the historic nature of what’s going on and how it will end state and local government as we’ve known it.
Comment: Are they aware that the new federal American Rescue Plan prohibits tax cuts like this?
Firms are short total of nearly $200M in property taxes from 2019 and over $1B from 2020.
The Illinois Senate has added to the call for the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to waive spring assessments, such as the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), for students, as it did in 2020.
In Evanston, Illinois, a Black parent and school-board candidate takes on a curriculum meant to combat racism.
People wishing to sign up for online sports wagering must now go to a brick-and-mortar facility.
A $2.3 billion extension of Chicago’s Red Line south to 130th Street. More than 600,000 new water lines across Illinois. A $3 billion total remake of North Lake Shore Drive.These are among the scores of projects Illinois state, local and federal officials are pursuing anew as President Joe Biden pushes his $2 trillion American Jobs Plan to shore up and transform the nation’s infrastructure.
Illinois native Nicole Neily, founder and president of Speech First, is doing what’s long overdue to bring freedom of expression back to higher education: She’s suing — and winning. Now she has expanded her efforts challenge the identity-based dogma being taught in K-12 schools.
Comment: A truly splendid op-ed that perhaps we can all agree with.
Immigration activists are objecting to renaming a Chicago school after Barack Obama.
Pritzker’s message should have been much simpler: “Either you reopen in full tomorrow or you get no money.” Problem solved. This is stomach-wrenching cruelty to our own children. There is no excuse.
Of the more than 2.1 million people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in Illinois, 399 have tested positive for the virus — or 0.0185% of those fully vaccinated, IDPH officials said, of which 17 have been hospitalized.
Landlords have yet to pay about 6 percent of commercial property taxes that were originally due last August, with late fees waived through Oct. 1. And with those payments still owed, another $1.1 billion is outstanding for 2020 property tax bills that were due in early March—more than one-third of the total amount billed—though property owners can still pay those without penalty before May 3.
Single family home prices in the Chicago area rose 8.9% from a year ago. That’s the biggest increase in almost 7 years.
Unfortunately, the Chicago area is still losing ground relative to the rest of the country. The nation’s home prices rose a whopping 11.2% over that 12 month period
Illinois has more units of local government than any other state and the second-highest property taxes in the nation. House Bill 1861 would have given Illinoisians the power to potentially reduce both at the ballot box.
We are speechless.
Mason Slaine, a technology investor and minority shareholder in Tribune, told The Wall Street Journal he is willing to put up $100 million toward a bid being put together by Stewart Bainum, chairman of Choice Hotels International Inc.
But it happened, prosecutors said Sunday. And Cortel King of Calumet City allegedly did it while on juvenile parole for vehicular invasion.
Aside from the usual reason to be cynical about whether Illinois will reform, the radical movement to make the downpour of federal cash permanent will encourage Illinois lawmakers to do nothing.
Comment: The effectiveness of our military, including special forces, is being sacrificed for racial politics. Why aren’t other members of Illinois’ congressional delegation speaking up against this?
Even before COVID-19, only one state and one U.S. territory experienced slower growth among their immigrant populations.
In research shared exclusively with The Atlantic after we spoke, Sharkey calculated that Chicago had 267 more fatal shootings in 2020 than the previous year. This was by far the largest numerical increase in the country and more than double that in any other city.
A money-for-nothing program turned out to be “insanely popular” so the program size was quadrupled and the plan is to expand it, with help from the federal government.
A resolution requesting the city hold a hearing on using federal coronavirus relief aid to fund a city-run guaranteed income program passed, but with more opposition than any other item on the agenda. 18 aldermen voted against it after lengthy debate about the need to prioritize reparations for Black Chicagoans before issuing any kind of cash-based program.
“Until we deal with the issue of reparations in the city of Chicago, there’s no way in hell we can support direct payments to anybody other than the American descendants of slaves in the city of Chicago,” Ervin told his colleagues at a City Council meeting.
Raoul said the the police department should ban no-knock search warrants “or, at minimum, severely limit their use.”
Fred Klonsky is a retired public school teacher and labor activist with a substantial online following.
Jan Schakowski is among the last people who should be running hearings on inciting hatred and violence.
CTU President Jesse Sharkey said potential compensation over the firings would constitute “reparations” against Black teachers who suffered from discriminatory policies.
Thank you to ZeroHedge for republishing our article, as well as RealClear politics that did the same.
Fully vaccinated or recently tested patrons would not count toward restaurant, bar and gym capacity caps. But how to implement that? “I am in no position to look at somebody’s medical records in order to give them meatballs.” Comment: This is about a de facto vaccination mandate which, as we wrote here, should be scrapped entirely.
Wake up, America. This movement must be stopped and, insofar as it has already succeeded, it must be reversed.
Comment: This would appear to violate the prohibition of state tax cuts contained in the new American Rescue Act.
— whether or not they need the money —
A landlord subject to the tenant eviction moratorium: “I had to get the boiler repaired to provide adequate heat. At one point, one of my tenants put something down the toilet, requiring plumbing repairs. And there was no moratorium on my mortgage payments, the utilities, insurance, the property taxes. I’ve had to sell off three of my six properties, exhaust my accounts, cash in my IRA and borrow against my retirement.”
Comment: This response to the Wirepoints op-ed in the Tribune is dead wrong. Legislators would not have unlimited discretion over pensions under the state constitutional amendment we proposed. The U.S. Constitution would still limit pension reform to measures that are fair, necessary and reasonable under the circumstances, as our op-ed stated.
Don Tracy, Illinois Republican Party Chairman: “Senator Duckworth and every other congressional Illinois Democrat voted for a provision of the COVID relief bill that explicitly prohibits states who receive money from cutting taxes through 2024. The Wall Street Journal reported that ‘the language is so expansive that states could be limited from making any changes to their tax codes that reduce revenue even if they don’t use federal funds as direct offsets.'”
Harmon’s claim that inclusion will be at the center of this process is dubious; no information has been released about the data lawmakers plan to use for the remap, nor what principles and guidelines the redraw will follow. And hearings begun this past week show little evidence of effort to include under-served voices.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Friday that state legislators were right to condemn state Rep. Chris Miller for rhetoric they say helped incite the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, arguing the downstate Republican’s remarks were “in that category of hatred and intolerance.”
Only a quarter of the district’s 205,000 preschool through 8th grade students have attended classes in person so far this year.
For starters, the President Biden-approved American Rescue Plan rewards Democratic-controlled states like New York, California and Illinois for their draconian COVID policies that resulted in the nation’s highest levels of unemployment.
Perhaps the most troubling is a legislative rider barring states that accept the aid from using the funds to cut taxes. But even if the “no tax cuts” condition passes constitutional muster, its naked attempt to impose tax homogeneity across the country shocks the conscience.
“We reject racist reparations and demand a better, more responsive, more complete program that provides access to reparations acts of actual repair to Black folks.”
Congress spends $86 billion to rescue private sector multi-employer retirement funds with no demands for reform. The Congressional Budget Office projects this pension rescue will cost a cool $86 billion, but that’s merely the start. The 430 or so at-risk plans have some $300 billion in unfunded liabilities. Government unions in Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut are also sure to cite the precedent to demand that their employee pensions be bailed out too.
Enough of the autocratic, oppressive emergency orders. End the imperium.
The admissions from Loretto come at a time when many people who are already eligible to be vaccinated are struggling to secure appointments for the shots due to enormous demand and a limited supply of doses.
“[T]o save Illinois, we need to fix what people don’t like about Illinois: its government. People leave Illinois because it’s poorly governed. Illinoisans are profoundly alienated from our government.”
The proposed Clean Energy Jobs Act would set closure dates for all coal plants in Illinois, including the troubled Prairie State Energy Campus. But it wouldn’t guarantee financial relief for customers locked into long-term contracts.
On the progressive tax increase it’s as if he has been on a different planet.
The frail condition of Chicago?s largest pension fund and the flawed funding mechanisms that are to blame took center stage last week in a debate over state legislation that would hike city contributions by $800 million.
The Municipal Employees? Annuity and Benefit Fund-backed legislation would raise the level of required contributions above the schedule in the existing ramp up to an actuarially based contribution scheduled for 2023.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Progressives want to provide $279 monthly payments by raising to 9.95 percent the Illinois inheritance tax, which applies to estates worth $4 million or more.
In Evanston, parents are asked to quiz their kids on whiteness and give them approachable examples of “how whiteness shows up in school or in the community.” A curriculum inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement is spreading, raising questions about the line between education and indoctrination.
Peoria County is Illinois’ standout for delivering vaccinations smartly — to the elderly, who have comprised the overwhelming portion of COVID deaths. It’s a lesson not just on doing things right, but on what Chicago is doing wrong — for the privileged and underprivileged alike.
The money is aimed primarily at hospitals and clinics in poorer neighborhoods and regions of the state, as well as those areas hardest hit by the pandemic. It’s expected to be used to set up and pay for programs that might, for example, help educate people about the importance of healthy eating in communities struggling with obesity.
Comment: While this article doesn’t name Illinois, the lesson from its list of examples applies everywhere.
Comment: Reasonable opinions may vary on exactly how vaccinations should be prioritized, but doing it by zip code is flat out stupid, and it’s costing lives. Residents in these zip codes who are young and healthy, or already immune through prior infection, face no meaningful risk, and they are taking the vaccine. Meanwhile, many of the elderly and those with known comorbidities, who face real risk, continue to be denied vaccination by an impossibly frustrating registration system.
The governor and the mayor must make the most of the federal dollars coming in via the COVID relief program. That means not only paying down debts but investing wisely for the economy of the future.
Illinois politicians are tempted to view the $13 billion federal aid package as a windfall—but if they don’t use this opportunity to fix the pre-COVID policy problems, the state’s financial situation will keep getting worse.
The poll itself is linked here.
“Our work isn’t done until equity and fairness is a guiding principle at all of our schools,” Pritzker said before signing the bill, which was drafted by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus. Gardner described her initial reaction to Pritzker signing the bill as an “out of body experience.”
Comment: On Twitter, GFOA says banning the term “CAFR” will have a “widespread impact on the government finance industry.”
“Perhaps the world’s preeminent annual gathering of local government experts and officials — wrapped up Wednesday online, with one of the most consistent topics of discussion being the importance of equitable recovery from the pandemic.” [Emphasis added.]
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, speaking on a panel entitled How Cities Can Build More Inclusive Economies, talked about the importance of lessons learned during the crisis.
“One of the big headlines coming out of the pandemic is that the things that we thought were impossible before are actually possible,” Lightfoot said. “Really, [they’re] absolutely necessary … one thing that the
Illinois has the highest effective total state & local tax rates in the nation on median U.S. household.
“Wow. Democrats in Washington are trying to dictate to governors and state legislatures that they can’t change their tax laws if they accept their share of the $1.9 trillion…. Much of the relief will invariably flow to government union pension funds, which are underfunded in states like Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut. “
“Governor J.B. Pritzker deserves high marks for his management of the pandemic, considering the abysmal lack of leadership and inadequate support from Washington. But now we are at the one-year mark. Vaccinations for all adults are promised by May. In any case, the light at the end of the tunnel is visible, making it critical to unveil a plan to bring back conventions now.”
Seemed like a good idea initially, but now the site has degenerated into the same chaotic mess as the rest of the vaccination rollout, this time running under the banner of “equity.”
Although most anti-racism efforts in education have focused on classroom teachers, “school leaders have a huge role to play in the process of challenging whiteness and developing anti-racist cultures and staff,” Tanner said.
“Anti-racist values and skillsets need to be threaded throughout all the courses,” Welton said.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Researchers: “Like in so many states, California and Illinois schools are being hamstrung by the CDC guidance. The guidance does not take into account the data we have regarding little disease transmission in schools. Nor, although the guidance cites the work performed across Wisconsin districts performed by our group and published in the MMWR, does it take that data and new analyses from that dataset into account. Keeping schools closed or even partially closed, based on what we know now is unwarranted, is harming children, and has become a human rights issue.”
“If you think California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are melting down now, wait until they have to compete against regions of the country in the South and the mountain states with no income taxes.”
The US Department of Education suspended an earlier decision that found racial “affinity groups” discriminated against students and staff. Earlier, DOE findings said the Evanston-Skokie School District violated civil rights. In a “letter of finding” — drafted by federal DOE Office of Civil Rights enforcement director Carol Ashley — was triggered by a complaint filed by a former NYC arts teacher who now works in the Evanston-Skokie school district.
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Socialism is real. Orwell’s warnings are real. Neither should be cancelled. Put them both up for scrutiny with a monument to him.
Details of what the $1.9 trillion federal aid bill contains for Illinois.
“We rise or we fall together. And it feels like we’re falling, fast. Someone is going to have to be willing to take the political risk, for all our sakes.”
Chicago school system officials say they have some data from appointments that were allocated to school staffers, but medical privacy laws limit their ability to publicize a firm count. A plan that recently cleared the school board will require school employees to disclose their vaccination status and, eventually, require vaccinations.
County health officials who oversee the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say they misunderstood state guidelines for vaccinating higher education employees and erroneously allowed hundreds of people who weren’t yet eligible — including coaches in the basketball program — to sign up for COVID-19 inoculations in early February.
Don Juan Restaurante opened in 1983, but the owner says the strain of the pandemic and costs of running a business in Chicago pushed it to the suburbs.
“Politicians who rule Illinois could point to the deadly energy crisis in Texas and say, ‘Do you see why regulations are needed? Do you realize the value of investing in government and infrastructure? You get what you pay for.’”
The Chicago Health Equity Coalition wants to meet with other potential buyers. Members want Mercy Hospital to stay a teaching hospital. They also want to keep the same number of beds and establish a governing board
Over the past 30 days, 88% of COVID deaths have been age 60 or over, which is the same proportion as we saw before the vaccine. Part of the reason why is simple: The elderly have gotten just 44% of the vaccines administered.
Advocates for corporate diversity and inclusion are hailing a first-ever report on the demographic composition of boards of directors for some companies headquartered in Illinois as a “gold mine” of data and a “game changer.”
As the owner of Water Tower Place plots a comeback for the Mag Mile mall, a bunch of tenants have decided not to wait around to see how the plan turns out. At least 10 retailers have left Water Tower in recent months, departures overshadowed by the recent decision of Macy’s, the mall’s biggest tenant, to close its department store there.
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Chicago) was elected the new chair of the Illinois Democratic Party on Wednesday evening, becoming the first Black person and first woman elected to lead the state party into a new era after the resignation of Michael Madigan.
Illinois, under the pending federal legislation, would get cash exceeding its actual revenue loss for for 2020 compared to 2019 by 1703%.
“Critics of President Biden’s plan to allocate $350 billion in federal aid to state and local governments have argued that this money is largely unnecessary due to the recovering economy as well as unspent millions “under the couch cushions.” Yet the notion that subnational governments don’t need additional support is a myth, premised on a highly selective interpretation of the data and a refusal to acknowledge the hollowing out of state and local government capacity over the last few decades, particularly in the areas of public health and education.”
Hyzon Motors said it will begin manufacturing in a 28,000-square-foot facility at 599 S. Schmidt Road and hire about 50 people by year-end. It will start construction on an 80,000-square-foot building and grow to about 100 employees next year.
Washington sent supplements of $600 a week. Since the pandemic ravaged low-wage sectors like retail sales and restaurants, adding $600 a week to the lowest unemployment benefits pushed many recipients’ purchasing power above what they had while working.
In Illinois, for example, per capita personal income actually rose as the pandemic kicked in. It climbed to $66,224 in the second quarter, from $59,896 in the first, according to the state’s Office of Management and Budget.
The number of people fleeing the Chicago metro area increased by 14% compared to the previous three years, but the number of people moving in dropped by more than double that – 29%.
At $63 billion and counting, the racket is shattering records and making Charles Ponzi look like a bush-leaguer.
Fox News host Dana Perino broke down in tears Thursday while speaking with a domestic violence survivor from Illinois whose 18-month-old son was shot to death by her estranged husband after he returned from jail without having to post bail.
A California federal judge has signed off on a $650 million settlement to end a massive class action brought against Facebook under Illinois’ biometrics privacy law, potentially queuing up payments of at least $345 to Illinois Facebook users and $97.5 million to the lawyers who brought the case to court six years ago.
For those of you bored by accounting, bear with me, this will be in plain English It may sound like green eye shade stuff, but it’s key to how Illinois, Chicago and many of its municipalities became financial basket cases. And the problem may get worse.
“The state has little hope of leveraging—or even retaining—all of its inherent strengths if we continue to undermine ourselves with tax and public pension policies that drive away business investment…. [Crain’s Joe Cahill] is right to argue that the next step Welch and Gov. J.B. Pritzker should take is to allow Illinoisans to vote on a standalone amendment repealing the so-called pension protection clause in the Illinois Constitution.”
Greg Hinz: “If you don’t believe jacking up taxes on Illinois companies will drive away business, ask the people whose job it is to help companies pick locations…. Outside experts I talked to pretty much said the same thing. Pritzker’s proposal, taken in the wake of the defeat of his vaunted graduated income-tax amendment last November, is just one more straw on the back of an already staggering camel.
“Income redistribution for public unions.” That’s what the Wall Street Journal today called the $350 billion aid package for cities and states now pending in Congress. Their column cited our recent analysis of the COVID impact on state budgets as well as other data showing that most states simply don’t need a bailout.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Comment: For background on this see our own story on his firing linked here.
Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs and a group of 29 other state financial officials recently sent letters to six of the nation’s largest private sector money managers in a transparently partisan attempt to bully them out of supporting Republicans.
The effort is a misuse of the power that adheres to managing billions of dollars of taxpayer money and a sets a dangerous precedent.
Comment: Most Illinoisans are still unaware, but Illinois owes $74 billion for OPEBs — basically, pensioner healthcare, which is in addition to pensions themselves. They are entirely unfunded and are constitutionally guarantied in Illinois just like pensions. They raise the true pension hole by roughly 50% over commonly reported numbers.
Thank you to Tribune for publishing our earlier piece.
Most college administrators are no doubt exhausted by constant student demands that range from the type of cereal served in the dining hall to the latest intersectional fad. So those running the University of Chicago must be pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Chicago Thinker on their campus this school year. It’s an online journal by conservative and libertarian students who
“Barnor Hesse, an associate professor of African American studies at Northwestern University, has created this handy graph where you can place your relative ‘whiteness’ on a scale and discover your true, glorious, racist self.”
Pushing infrastructure reform as a matter of racial equity, Chicago business and civic groups have launched a legislative campaign to get state transportation officials to throw out the pork barrel and instead use detailed, apolitical criteria in deciding how to spend billions of dollars on road and transit projects.
“Public employee unions are politically impregnable, but their corrosion of democratic governance may leave them open to constitutional attack.”
When was the last time you heard of a media outlet firing one of its top people for political bias – left-leaning bias, that is?
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Democrat Mike Simmons was chosen to succeed former state Sen. Heather Steans, who resigned. He’s focused on creating policies for and with those in the community who are “never seen, are never heard and whose agency is never respected.”
“With Peoples Gas’ expensive pipe replacement program, the city needs to act now to alleviate the rising economic and climate pressures. The solution might well be right under our feet: geothermal energy.”
If you want to trust the experts on COVID, you better pick which ones carefully.
Worried? You darn well should be, and it ought not matter what party you are in or what party is playing speech cop.
“It’s wrong to allow an unsustainable pension system to interfere with state government’s most important duties. It’s criminal when those costs fall on kids.”
“It developed slowly at first, until police were left overwhelmed, Mayor Lori Lightfoot was left grasping for a response, and her city was left to pick up the pieces.”
Despite that staggering cost, Illinois is farther behind than ever, with total unfunded liability in the state’s pension funds of $141 billion, up $3.8 billion, or 2.8 percent, since last year. The reason why is that the state still isn’t contributing what is actuarially required just to tread water. In fact, it continues to sweeten some benefits, that on top of the 3 percent compounded cost of living hike that most workers get annually.
Initially, Madigan released a statement saying his resignation would be effective at the end of February. But Madigan has since issued a letter saying his resignation was effective immediately.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Illinois’ estimated claims make up nearly 8% of the estimated 861,000 filed across the country this week.
Despair, as best as we can tell, is the emotion growing most rapidly in Illinois, and yesterday, February 17, was particularly dispiriting. We hope, however, that conviction, courage and resiliency remain dominant and prevail against a government so estranged from so many of its own people.
Comment: Be certain to look at the list of “problematic” statues linked here.
Delivered 2/17/20 by remote video.
The pending federal bill for state and local aid is a nonsensical effort for the nation to bail itself out from a problem that doesn’t exist for the nation as a whole, with a few states likely to be looking for more than their share.
“Some conservative groups such as Wirepoints argue the [better than expected tax revenue] is so real that the state no longer needs what it would get from Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion federal COVID relief bill.”
Distortion and dishonesty are endemic in Illinois government, but rarely as blatant as what is being said to defend CRTLS — the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards now pending for Illinois K-12 schools.
“Unfortunately, this will not be a feel-good feature story, a la Crain’s Chicago Business. The reality is that leaders from the private sector in Chicago, including business owners, management consultants, investment bankers, lawyers and real estate professionals we spoke with, are worried about the future of the city.”
“I am a black American intellectual living in an age of persistent racial inequality in my country…. I begin with a provocation: Consider this story from my hometown newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, that ran on May 31st, 2016.”
But read this story in conjunction with our own new article on this topic, linked here.
Its story is emblematic of the challenges facing its patients and a large swathe of U.S. hospitals also struggling to survive. “The history of Mercy Hospital is literally the history of Chicago.”
Suffering from a long-term structural deficit that won’t be eliminated unless politicians change the tax policy status quo — and raise the revenue needed to sustain spending on core public services.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security defended itself Wednesday over a series of issues that have affected the agency’s ability to provide services to people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regression analysis reveals that if Illinois had the same level of corruption per capita as the national average during that same period, the state’s poverty rate would have been lower by roughly 0.7 percentage points—that’s nearly 88,000 fewer Illinoisans living under the Census Bureau’s poverty line. The poorest Illinoisans tend to be younger, Black, unmarried with young children and less likely to have a college degree.
“In general, when there is less traffic, there is a temptation to exceed the posted speed limit,” Illinois State Police spokesperson Delila Garcia said in an email. “The Illinois State Police is asking the motoring public to fight the temptation. Slow down and pay attention to the road.”
The fact that Illinois’ economy seems to have done reasonably well during COVID-19 isn’t the same as saying the state government is doing well. It isn’t, the experts note, with the same huge structural deficit and billions in outstanding bills that existed before COVID-19. It will take much more than federal stimulus and a resilient economy to fix that long-term mess.
With the stock exchange’s chief threatening to move the entire operation away from the New York area, Illinois officials see a chance to broaden their current pitch for the data center to include the entire HQ.
In Illinois, the Utah school’s problem looks like a minor dust-up compared with a proposed rule that a joint legislative committee is scheduled to decide soon. The proposed Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards would mandate all of the state’s public schoolteachers to “embrace and encourage inclusive viewpoints and perspectives.”
Mr. Biden is discovering what America’s parents have learned in the last year: Unions run the schools. Take Chicago, where elementary and middle schools were supposed to reopen in March. But teachers, who will be prioritized for vaccines, won’t have to return to classrooms if they have
Although COVID-19 caused real gross economic output to decline in the second quarter of last year by 30.6 percent, annualized, what’s concerning are the pre-pandemic cracks that left Illinois extremely vulnerable to a downturn and its most vulnerable citizens even worse off. The arrival of COVID-19 meant Illinois’ Black families suffered even more than Black Americans in other states, and the state was too weak to help.
Illinois’ vaccination efforts to date only reinforce negative perceptions of the state, adding another blemish to our tarnished image. Millions across Illinois who are desperate for vaccinations don’t know where or when they’ll get protection from a virulent pathogen that has killed 20,000 in the state. Many don’t even know how to find answers to those questions. Vaccine quests have been likened to the “Hunger Games,” frantic scrambles that reward only superhuman tenacity, or dumb luck.
“You can tell power in Washington has changed hands because of the muted response as the Biden White House ousts U.S. Attorney John Lausch of the Northern District of Illinois.”
He posted this Monday on Facebook and it’s quite a read.
The bottom line couldn’t be clearer: Chicago teachers have fled their posts at the moment of maximum need and our politicians are their enablers.
See our review of the pending proposal here.
The CDC attributes the disparities to unequal access to care, structural racism and implicit biases in the health care system that also can lead to a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions that complicate pregnancy.
The full framework is linked here.
Don Tracy, a former state Gaming Board chairman and unsuccessful 2010 lieutenant governor candidate, was picked by top Republicans on Saturday as the new Illinois GOP chairman. The Illinois GOP’s own statement on the announcement is here.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will abolish free speech restrictions imposed by its bias-response team to settle a lawsuit brought by the campus free-speech advocacy organization Speech First.
The number of Illinoisans seeking help for problem gambling has almost doubled since legislators approved a massive gambling expansion in 2019. Experts expect that number to keep growing.
“Illinois’ new standards will better prepare teachers to support and educate all of their students, regardless of background. By doing so, we can create an America that finally honors the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.”
Lawmakers are not around to act on the governor’s request about offsetting losses, and the state doesn’t know whether it will have to fill an additional $1 billion budget hole.
Pritzker has the power to order Illinoisans to “shelter” in their homes, to ruin businesses and to padlock the schools. He’s a Democrat, the same party as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, yet he hangs her out to dry when he could be using a huge influence to pressure the Chicago Teachers Union to end its insane, bogus and anti-scientific claims that its members are risking their lives by returning to the classroom.
Mark Konkol: “To me, the money trail — from taxpayers to teacher salaries to CTU coffers to political action committees to politicians spouting union talking points at a news conference — is a reminder that the looming threat of a teachers strike is about more than negotiations over how to safely offer parents the option to return students to classrooms.”
Please, Treasurer Frerichs, don’t claim doubled balances in college savings accounts are because of changes you championed.
The fight goes on to move it to an appropriate place. If it is built in Jackson Park, it will stand as a fittingly hideous monument to hubris and misuse of government power, subsidized by Illinois and federal taxpayers, disfiguring one of the finest urban parks on the planet.
Imposing uniformity of thought is the board of education’s agenda for “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading” (CRTL).
Illinois’ congressional Democrats, most notably U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and the North Shore’s Rep. Brad Schneider, are leaders in this campaign, which would make the tax code more regressive…. For Democrats who routinely say they want to raise
Oak Lawn mayor: I’m writing this letter in response to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s dismissive response to our community’s outrage over the tragic killing of a beautiful young girl, a death that could have been – and should have been – prevented.
After a year of crises, a few high-profile execs are beginning to scout for an alternative whom they can back.
Comparing January of this year to January of last year, each of the “big three” revenue sources are up.
The U.S. Justice Departments press release is linked here.
“In the three years of One Illinois, this is the hardest story to write, because with its publication this website will cease operations.”
Illinois mitigation efforts are restricting occupancy, which takes its toll on one of the industry’s most profitable areas, conventions and business meetings.
It would help if the state offered more information about reopening, even if time frames aren’t set in stone, Jacobson said. “Everything is going day-by-day,” he said. “The confusion it’s placing is mind-numbing.”
The story behind the measure to boost some firefighter pensions—costing city taxpayers $850 million and drawing strong opposition from business—says a lot about how legislating gets done in Springfield.
The latest assault on diversity of opinion, which should be central to higher education, is by students themselves on Jason D. Hill of DePaul University in Chicago. He dared to say that trans women — those who were previously male — ought not be competing in sports against biological women.
It could solve most all the problems facing CPS including its junk bond rating, doomed pension and, most importantly it could end the Chicago Teachers Union. But they just don’t have the guts to face up to our problems.
Those who are most frustrated probably are those who most need the shot – the old and sick who have little if any computer skills and no family help.
Hypocrisy is everywhere in politics, but three of Illinois’ self-styled progressives are going for broke by pushing to repeal the cap on SALT deductions.
“The fact that there has been very little pushback on such drastic departures from previous standards raises the question of whether parents have been made aware of the proposed rules at all. In these extraordinary times, parents often blindly follow the “safety” orders of their districts, until it is too late.”
“We no longer are talking about children being at risk because they are being raised in single-parent homes,” Mitchell wrote last week, but she dared to do just that.
“The [CTU] says its members won’t go back to work so long as the city’s positive test rate is above 3 percent. Where did it get that threshold as the basis for its negotiating stance? It pulled it out of thin air…. The negative effects of no school are the flip side of the many wonderful things teachers achieve when they are in school. But now the educational system is powerfully influenced by organizations that don’t seem to believe in critical thinking, adjusting beliefs according to the evidence, or combating fear with science.”
Illinois’ “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards” are up for ratification in the General Assembly on Feb. 16.
It would turn the entire K-12 system into a leftist indoctrination camp by mandating every teacher adopt and teach progressive political orthodoxy to student; whoever doesn’t will lose their license.
The men and women recently nominated to the Department of Education are activists who will look for any opportunity to impose these standards on the entire country.
Parents don’t have their kids for long. If they’re indoctrinated like this, parents are probably not going to have them at all.
Make an investment
Comment: Inexcusable, and Illlinois is among the states where this is happening, as we wrote here.
“The case that schools can provide in-person instruction safely during the coronavirus pandemic has gotten overwhelming… Public-school teachers in Chicago are nonetheless going on strike to avoid in-person instruction.”
“I understand they’re squatters and they’re owed no duty of any kind,” the judge said in a kind and sympathetic tone. He apologized that he couldn’t order the eviction. “In a case with squatters we should be able to get them out right away.”
Chicago’s spike in carjackings has some residents so rattled that aldermen are working with private security to make sure residents can pump gas in peace.
Without evidence, the billionaire politician blamed “racism” for the need to send Illinois troops to D.C.
“Ultimately, we must root out the dark forces of racism, white supremacy, and disinformation that have created this moment, but until we do that, our extraordinary troops will deploy with honor,” he claimed.
An emergency donation of $1.8 million to the Archdiocese of Chicago earlier this month from the nonprofit Big Shoulders Fund is helping to keep the doors open at West and South side Catholic schools with budgets hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said Friday.
As Illinois continues to lag behind many other states in the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations, state officials announced Wednesday that dentists will now be able to volunteer to administer shots at vaccination sites.
What’s really scary is that the same guy is responsible for managing some $35 billion of taxpayer money.
Illinois Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are among other senate democrats reintroducing legislation that would make Washington D.C. the 51st state.
Some six weeks after the first shipments, the U.S. has administered some 53% of distributed vaccines. The gap continues to grow between states that are getting shots into arms, and those arguing over who gets what and when. North Dakota had administered some 84% of its supply as of Jan. 23, and West Virginia about 83%—far better than states like California (45%) or Alabama (47%). Federalism is showing what works—and what doesn’t. Comment: Illinois is currently at 48.2%
It would have been easy – yes, easy – to build a simple system that people could understand for making appointments to get the vaccine. That wasn’t done, so the predictable mess has ensued.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Mr. Biden wants Congress to appropriate another $130 billion to help schools re-open with no requirement that they do. As the CTU has again shown, the real obstacle to getting kids back into classrooms is self-serving unions.
Among other things, the ordinance would prevent landlords from charging high fees for late rent or locking out tenants without going through the legally defined eviction process.
Comment: This is a good place to add our occasional reminder that we publish all perspectives including those we strongly disagree with.
Some blamed the mayhem on the pandemic, but persistent cop-bashing emboldened criminals.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch expresses the conventional wisdom: because of the “economic, civic and interpersonal stress” from the coronavirus pandemic. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed pandemic-related “frustration, anger . . . trauma and mental
Natasha Korecki was promoted last week to White House correspondent for Politico. It’s emblematic of what’s been happening in the national press.
Chicago remains in second-to-last place. The current pandemic will only further deteriorate the city’s financial condition. The main cause of Chicago’s financial problems stems from the city’s unfunded retirement benefits. The city has only set aside 23 cents for every dollar of promised pension benefits. Furthermore, the city has not set aside any money to fund $829 million in other post-employment benefits for municipal employees.
A few presidents learned that the hard way. Northwestern President Morton Schapiro found himself in hot water for castigating anti-police demonstrators who had lit fires and vandalized local chain businesses in Evanston. “They care more about private property than human lives,” one student said, condemning Schapiro and other critics of the violence.
“There’s no doubt we all want to return to in-person instruction. The issue is CPS’ current unpreparedness for a return to in-person instruction, and the clear and present danger that poses to the health of our families and school communities,” the union said in a statement.
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Only 19% of students eligible for the first wave of in-person learning returned to classrooms when Chicago Public Schools reopened this month for the first time during the pandemic, according to new data released by the district, falling well short of
A sweeping, radical rule is pending for Illinois K-12 teachers that should prompt everyone, of all political stripes, to fear about the fundamental roles that teachers and classrooms are assigned to fulfill.
The home-value gap for blacks is particularly big for Chicago — 37% — which is higher than the ten other largest cities in America and well above the national average gap of 16%.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Keep your eye on the under-the-radar case of Illinois. That is where woke has gone for broke, and America may soon pay the price. Should the rule be ratified on February 16, the entire Illinois teacher corps will be effectively forced into political re-education and compelled to turn their classes into woke indoctrination sessions. Illinois is literally about to mandate that every one of its licensed teachers adopt progressive political orthodoxy and impart that
In a letter linked here and released to the media, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth urged Illinois’ three U.S. attorneys to take action: “The violent mob, incited by the president of the United States, and comforted—and potentially aided—by certain members of Congress, sought to halt the peaceful transfer of power through an act of domestic terror.”
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, it’s often said. But what can we say about undoing a history lesson already learned?
Richard Porter: We need a thorough rethinking of all aspects of our government. We need leaders looking for ways to help people rise instead of holding them down or shaking them down.
City home sales at $1 million or more dropped nearly 7 percent in 2020. In the suburbs, they were up 40 percent.
“(I)n September 2018, a considerably less forgiving Welch tweeted that Republicans should ‘do the right thing and withdraw (Brett) Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court’ over allegations that he’d groped a young woman when he was in high school more than 35 years earlier. The testimony of Kavanaugh’s accuser was ‘credible and riveting!!!’ Welch wrote.”
McCarty said it’s a problem municipal budget directors are facing across the state. He’s alerted the Illinois Municipal League and local elected officials of the problem, which now has the attention of the governor’s office.
President-elect Joe Biden on Friday provided some details on his proposed $1.9 billion pandemic relief bill, called The American Rescue Plan. It includes $350 billion for state and local governments.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot emerged from the Illinois General Assembly’s abbreviated session bruised by new legislation that will worsen the city’s financial woes and weaken her hand with public-sector unions. One bill passed in the session sweetens Chicago firefighter pensions, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the city’s pension tab. Another gives the Chicago Teachers Union, already one of the sharpest thorns in the mayor’s side, bargaining powers it lost in 1995. And leaders in the Illinois Senate are committed to taking away her power to appoint school board members even though the effort is delayed for now.
Bill Dwyer, former newspaper reporter, doesn’t spare words when it comes to Emanuel “Chris” Welch, the new Illinois House speaker.
“He’s the worst of the worst when it comes to crony politics,” says Dwyer, who lives in the Chicago area.
The measure proposes $350 billion of emergency aid to states and local governments, enough to more than cover the immediate budget shortfalls caused by shutdowns to contain the virus.
“Although COVID-19 caused real gross economic output to decline in the second quarter of last year by 30.6 percent, annualized, what’s concerning are the pre-pandemic cracks that left Illinois extremely vulnerable to a downturn and its most vulnerable citizens even worse off…. During the State of the State, Pritzker needs to bring these reforms as his economic glue pot. Just chasing a bigger money pot will only widen the cracks.”
“The passage of a sweetened pension deal for Chicago firefighters is a set piece that rather neatly captures our current predicament…. We may have a new speaker presiding over our House of Representatives, but in all the ways that really matter, nothing much has changed in Springfield.”
Tragedy should beget solace, but not silence.
“I’m sure that you have not had to reflect on your white supremist thinking and way of life. White Supremacy is no longer the white hooded villain attempting to cause physical harm. You make personal attacks towards me because we are not giving you what you want. I suggest you look in the mirror and reflect on who you are and how you are presenting yourself to an African American leader. I refuse to sit back and be assaulted about my decision making to not return to in person learning especially when the undertone is outright racists.”
By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.
The bill would would lengthen the pre-judgment interest accrual period to when an alleged wrongdoer has notice of the injury versus when a plaintiff files suit. Because of the state’s statute of limitations law, that could add as much as two years of interest at 9 percent a year owed by defendants.
The man most responsible for the dreadful condition of Illinois politics and the state’s finance has finally suffered a tentative defeat. On Monday Mike Madigan, the speaker of the Illinois House for all but two years since 1983, said he will suspend his attempt to seek the 60 votes he needs for another term as the boss.
It’s difficult to believe, but guess what the Illinois General Assembly was quick to move on — after not meeting for over seven months.
Rest in peace.
If the current surge of authoritarian suppression persists, so too will violent opposition to it. That violence must end, and the best way to end it is by assuring robust, free expression of political opinion.
“The governor called his proposal a “technical fix” and claimed it would be good for everyone in the state. In reality, the legislative change he is proposing would increase the tax liability for small businesses when many can least afford it and impede economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.”
“Totally peaceful from my end, I don’t know what happened in the capitol because I was never there,” Fitzgerald said. He told the I-Team he condemns Wednesday’s violence.
“I wasn’t there on the front lines to really see it but from the little bits of social media that I have seen and just from being there, whatever that was like somewhat nefarious and that totally wasn’t the vibe of what was happening,” Fitzgerald said.
A former top official of the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board has sued the Chicago Sun-Times for libel over stories published in 2020 regarding an anonymous complaint against him as the agency staff considered whether to award President Donald Trump a refund of more than $1 million on the property taxes for his Chicago tower.
Pop quiz: 176 billion is the difference between Wisconsin and Illinois by what measure?
With the exit of Macy’s and other retailers, the Mag Mile needs to be reinvented. “If Michigan Avenue is dead Chicago is dead.”
Illinois lost a net 31,100 eating and drinking place jobs in November, which was easily the highest among the 36 states that experienced employment declines.
You’d think we’d be past this, but we are not. The same voices that have denied Illinois’ horrendous trajectory for years are still at it. The latest example is Tuesday’s article by Greg Hinz on the state’s population loss.
The Board of Review has largely reversed moves by the Cook County assessor to shift the tax burden from homeowners to businesses. So says a new report from the assessor himself.
Democratic control of the United States Senate had barely become apparent at 11 P.M. last night. But Anne Caprera, Gov. JB Pritzker’s Chief of Staff, knew exactly what it meant.
Excess deaths are now more frequently being attributed to “deaths of despair.” A new study projected that excess deaths resulting from the economic strain of the pandemic will amount to 900,000 over the next 15 years.
Greg Hinz: “How much longer must a parent who’s seen their child lose much of one year of irreplaceable education wait to avoid a second year of loss? Should they have to wait longer than they want if they’re not the right color? Or will they just give up on CPS and move out of town? This is nasty, mean stuff. Using “equity” in this fashion risks achieving the opposite.”
For every person killed in a city shooting, five are shot and survive. Those victims — about 50,000 since 2000 — are marked for life.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Comment: This is from RT, Russia’s state-sponsored news agency. Even they are ridiculing this CTU official. See our Wirepoints’ own story on this here.
“I can’t both deal with a raise in pay and a decline in sales. We are already balancing pandemic-related issues. This makes it much much worse.”
Wirepoints cited: “Over the last decade, Illinois has lost 243,102 in population, about the size of Peoria and Naperville combined. Only West Virginia (-3.7%) has lost a larger share of its population than Illinois (-2%). Other states in the Midwest including Indiana (4.1%), Iowa (3.7%), Kentucky (3%), Missouri (2.6%), Wisconsin (2.5%) and Michigan (0.9%) have added population since 2010, according to research outfit Wirepoints, so Democrats in Illinois can’t blame cold weather.”
Sarah Chambers, who was also part of that “solidarity delegation” with other CTU members that went last year to communist Venezuela.
Lightfoot No. 3.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
There hasn’t been a jury trial in a Cook County courtroom in nine months. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Constitutional right to a speedy trial is suspended statewide.
Comment: The weighted average discount rate used by Illinois’ state pensions is about 6.8%. That makes the officially reported unfunded liabilities utterly fictitious for the reasons explained in this article. “Moody’s analysts expect to apply a 2.7% rate to local governments’ fiscal 2021 reporting, down from 4.14% in fiscal 2018 and about the same as Milliman’s current discount rate for corporate pensions. It will likely cause pension shortfalls “to increase by double-digit percentages” in the next two years, Moody’s says. As harrowing as that seems, the 2.7% rate is likely to prove higher than anything pension-fund managers can hope to
“As you’re connecting with close family and friends virtually, here are some suggestions on how to get the conversation started.”
Goofy Ridge? It’s not Normal and hardly Standard.
Former Executive Director Ira Glasser discusses the past, present, and increasingly shaky future of free speech. “What matters is you have to stop the government from gaining the power to decide…. For people who today claim to be passionate about social justice to establish free speech as an enemy is suicidal.”
They cut in front of those who are at far greater risk, particularly those who are over age 70.
In October and November, some 12 percent of Chicagoans using Redfin to house hunt looked outside the region, and the most common place they searched was South Bend, 95 miles east, according to a report released Dec. 21 by Redfin, the online real estate marketplace.
You’d think Gov. JB Pritzker would start worrying about being branded as entirely unserious, partisan and dishonest about Illinois’ problems.
The CDC came scarily close to adopting a plan that would, according to its own models, have killed thousands of Americans.
First Midstate Inc. and its president Paul Brown, 61, agreed to pay and be censured without admitting or denying the SEC?s findings that it violated both SEC and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board rules.
Hinz blames the population loss on Bruce Rauner and the Illinois Policy Institute.
“The former president should thank the current one for helping him build in Chicago…. Judge—now Justice—Barrett wasn’t necessarily endorsing Mr. Obama’s idea of clearing treasured green space to realize his vision of a self-tribute in stone and glass. She was simply applying the law as written, without regard to politics.”
With the end of the COVID-19 in sight, and having let the governor micromanage the state under an emergency order, it appears the General assembly may now seriously consider authorizing itself to meet remotely.
“They’d rather spread deliberately exaggerated fears about the coronavirus so they can exercise power over local governments, encouraging teachers to walk out of the classroom if their schools reopen and threatening strikes if government officials buck their demands. Now, almost unbelievably, a teachers union in Chicago is suggesting widespread vaccination won’t be enough to convince teachers to return to the classroom.”
Comment: Nothing for states and cities, which Illinois and Chicago are counting on. A potential aid package for them has been deferred until January after the Georgia Senate election that will determine control of the Senate.
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![a man wearing a mask: Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot arrives at Wrigley Field on April 16, 2020 in Chicago Illinois. Wrigley Field has been converted to a temporary satellite food packing and distribution center in cooperation with the Lakeville Food Pantry to support ongoing relief efforts underway in the city as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.]({"default":{"load":"default","w":"80","h":"58","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ecOWT.img?h=575&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"},"size3column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"45","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ecOWT.img?h=450&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"},"size2column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"45","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ecOWT.img?h=450&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"}})
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